Currently, if someone plays a full summoner or a hybrid, it is always better to have MORE AND MORE additional summoned creatures. This is better for increasing of total damage and for continuing to deal damage if part of summons dies.
I am talking about builds in which pets deal more than half of total damage. What if we want to be full summoner but with only one pet?
We can have some components and/or unique items that:
buff VERY MUCH health and damage of a particular pet (only that one pet);
debuff VERY MUCH health and damage of all pets.
For example, before equipping that special item our build has:
“Briarthorn” with 200% health and 1000% damage;
“Hellhound” with 200% health and 1000% damage.
After equipping that item all our pets receive debuff (numbers are just for example) -100% health and -800% total damage. But the same item buffs “Briarthorn” (only this pet) with +200% health and +2000% damage.
As the result we have:
“Briarthorn” with (200% - 100% + 200% =) 300% health (1.5 times more) and (1000% - 800% + 2000% =) 2200% damage (2.2 times more);
“Hellhound” with (200% - 100% =) 100% health (2 times less) and (1000% - 800% =) 200% damage (5 times less).
So after equipping this item we have full summoner but with completely other priorities in spending skillpoints and using items.
Now we are focusing rather on buffing the particular pet but not on adding new summoned pets to our build. It is different approach for building summoners.
If we still want to have some other summons for a buff/debuff or other reasons than we can have it. But their roles become much more limited that previously. It is still full summoner or hybrid but with different approach.
Update:
I am talking about pets scaling with pet bonuses. But pets, scaling with player bonuses have almost the same problem (to have more damage more summons are preferred).
I mean 1 entity of 1 kind of pet. Not several entities of 1 kind of pet. Not 1 entity of each of several kinds of pets. All successful summoners are leaders of a mob (the more). My proposal is to limit (useful) summon to 1 entity of 1 kind.
Debuffed are ALL pets. Not just a 1 kind of pets. Buffed is only 1 kind of pet.
Additional summons ARE IMPOSSIBLE (except “Raise Skeletons”) if the addition I propose is part of bonus of new full set (4 items). This is because all pets (scaled with pet bonuses) can have additional number only with bonuses of other full sets (4 items) (“Raise Skeletons” are exception).
Seems redundant because you can just have an item that just gives you another Briarthorn.
The same end result and no need to code new stuff as such items/sets already exist in the game.
And in this case you focus only on this particular pet as well.
I think you’re trying to reinvent the wheel.
Unless you’re talking about literally one physical entity but then it’s seem like a whim to me not a really useful feature.
However it would certainly make strengthening one particular pet easier as far as itemization is concerned. Doubling the damage would be too much though. You currently need a full set for that. Also weakening the rest of the pets is not a drawback at all because you can just simple not use them and then you got no drawback at all.
Now I get that your numbers are just examples but these are very much way too high. Not only that, someone could just use this item and just invest in the Briarthorn and a bunch of other pets that don’t include the Hellhound at no detriment whatsoever.
You may as well just cut out the middleman here and just make it solely a Briarthorn buff that is less potent. What’s more, things like this already exist. The Briarthorn for example has Bloodsworn Codex and Beastcaller’s set like tqFan mentioned.
Practically speaking, if you are looking to make a single pet as strong as you possibly can, you are best looking at the Primal Spirit (or Reap Spirit if you count a single pet skill). Both are capable enough that when built around can carry a pet build.
Something I’ll say as well is, if you try to make a hybrid caster with pet-scaled pets and player damage that is roughly a 50/50 split, you will have an extremely hard time getting it to work adequately. Maybe you could at the end but it’s going to take a lot of effort going in for little payment out compared to any conventional build out there.
What I would recommend instead if you want that sort of hybrid summoner/caster feel is to look at player-scaled summons. Revenant’s Skellies, Guardians of Empyrion, Blade Spirits, Living Shadows, the Nemesis/Deathstalker relic etc…
If you pick the right combination of these, conversion that collates their damage and the right items in the case of mastery player pets like the Guardians to maximise their damage, you can make a nice summoner/pet user. For example, this is my Vitality Blightlord caster that maximises the Guardian’s damage and has Skellies. Blood Knight can also make a similar styled character but for melee as well.
With the exception of increasing summon limit of “Raise Skeletons” all other pets (those who scale with pets) can have additions number of summons only with bonus of equipping of a full set (4 items).
So to prevent exploiting such a possibility we should have such a buff only as bonus, acquired with certain sets of 4 items.
So this problem can be solved.
About not using additional summons. I tried. It always ends with either:
several different pets (total damage is much higher this way and different buffs/debuffs are also very useful);
several pets of same kind (total damage is much higher this way);
one pet that deals less than half of total (me + pet) damage (it may be OK for some hybrid builds but I do not know about decent success of such builds).
In any case, if I want to go full summoner, I must have as much summons as possible. If I do not have many summons, I loose a lot of sources of damage. The support for 1 exclusive pet can change it.
Thing is you’d don’t go hybrid for pet based pets. You’re either a full petmancer or no petmancer; you’re something else. As Evil says if you want to be a type of hybrid then look at the player based pets in the game.
About “Revenant’s Skellies, Guardians of Empyrion, Blade Spirits, Living Shadows”.
Again. We need as much quantity as possible of these summons. My proposal will allow to have 1 entity of 1 kind of pet (scaled with pet bonuses, because I do not know how to debuff all other pets scaling with player).
About “Nemesis/Deathstalker”.
Sounds good. I did not try it. But looking at damage numbers I have strong doubts that it will be enough to deal ~50% of total damage at Absolute difficulty.
Try looking at the Primal Spirit with skill modifiers.
In any case, you are going to have a hard time making any 1 singular pet deal 50% of your total damage output and not have it be overpowered for playstyles outside of that area.
Have you considered modding for your proposals? Should be easy to make tweaks to existing items or skill modifiers to accomplish what you’re looking for.
About modding. )))
I edited and currently am playing “Dawn of Masteries” mod with “Briarthorn” pet buffed this way. So I know what I am talking about. It is really fun.
I thought about such idea after noticing how it is hard to see anything on screen with 30+ active pets (skeletons mostly) fighting 30+ enemies.
And after that I remembered build for “Animate Guardian” in “Path of Exile” (link for YouTube video).
The “Animate Guardian” summoned “pet” can deal 50%-100% of total damage. In “Grim Dawn” all the mechanics of “Animate Guardian” are not possible. But I could buff 1 single pet. And I did so.
That mod is the opposite of what I want. It increases number of pets of each kind. I prefer only 1 pet at a time.
I already played summoner (2 masteries from a mod) with 30+ pets simultaneously. It is not fun for me.
@tqFan
Hello, I could not have said it better myself. I posted this same link/comment in the feedback page and a dev has already started talking to me about this. It would need to be very refined but I think it could be a solid baseline for a worthy $$$ DLC.
