Make pets a worthwhile investment for non summoners

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Currently, unless you’re a summoner, mastery pets are only worth investing in for their utility. Even then, they die easily and do no damage because you have to gear specifically for pets, at which point it becomes an all or nothing deal.

What if mastery pets gained a % of the player’s stats in addition to pet gear bonuses?

It wouldn’t buff summoners too much since they don’t have much stats of their own for the pet to scale off, and it would only affect mastery pets.

It’d be nice to have a pet that fights alongside you and actually contributes. And it’s not like they’re free.

2

Just make all pets scale with player damage bonuses. True summoners will still stand out with +%pet health, +%pet attackspeed, +%pet resistances, extra pets, etc, and all summoner gear and devotions may become significantly more viable for non-summoner builds after redesign.

P.S. I’m an avid pure summoner hater, so don’t take me seriously.

3

If you are careful about it, you can make Hybrid pet builds. Also, there are pets that scale with player damage bonuses, notably Nemesis and Revenant

4

Actually, I kind of liked the TQ pets in this regard. Even with a few points invested, most pets could hold their own enough to be not completely useless even on the hardest difficulty. Pets like the Nightmare from the dream mastery were resilient enough to stand 2-3 swings even with just 5-6 points invested, had a burst attack which leeched life and the confusion skill it had was useful even against most hero mobs.

In GD, adding useful cc skills to every pet, together with damage scaling based on player level, can be a good way to make them slightly more useful for every build, but care must be taken to see that pets have decent enough AI so that multiple pets don’t waste time using their respective cc skills all at once, because then pure summon builds would hate to have their clear speeds drastically bogged down.

5

Same, but I’m willing to enjoy quasi-summoning and think swapping pets from using Pet Bonii to using Player Bonii is a good idea. I think it’d be too massive of a change to happen post-release of Grim Dawn, though.

6

This is the what I thought about as well.

It makes more sense to have player scaling as it would allow for more diversity with builds and easier to juggle stats as opposed to player v pet stat items - definitely would take a ton of changes to make that switch for sure.

7

The problem with player-scaling summons is obvious in Diablo 3. It’s just not as viable as simply using nukes - why would you go through all that bother just to power up nukes that have HP bars? Why not just use something that appears on screen, does its job, and can’t be targeted/killed?

Grim Dawn mixes things up a bit by making it so pets have their own line of powerful items, and summoners have to walk a fine line between powering up their minions and having enough personal survivability/utility. Hybrid summoners have to juggle that with having enough personal DPS by stacking party-wide buffs/debuffs.

Still, one potential compromise that would make pets more viable for everyone is to make defensive pet bonuses scale with the player stats in some way. There’s a already thematic link there, the whole “pet draws part of the power of its physical form from it’s summoner” thing.
Physique could affect pet HP, Cunning pet DA and Spirit pet resistances.
Offensive pet bonuses should really remain summoner-only.

8

So you invested in them purely for their utility?

Only if you’d need to change every summoner item. And that would probably be OP since a full summoner would have offensive stats of his own. Which is why I suggested they scale (not 100%) off of player stats in addition to pet gear.

Sure, if your mentality is sanic gotta go fast. D3 is about clear speed and efficiency. Sure, you could apply that mentality to GD if you want, and there are definitely players who do, but let them continue to not use pets. I just want to try out new builds.

That would just be awkward. Plus it would only help in the pets being used for their utility. It doesn’t solve the problem of spending 48 points on a hellhound being a total and utter waste if you’re not playing that one specific playstyle: summoner. It’s too all or nothing.

9

Making all pets scale with Player Damage bonuses is almost a good idea. And I say that for two reasons:

  1. While it allows them to be a bit more useful for non-pet builds this will mean that your character build will need to be of the pet’s damage type to be relevant.
  2. Builds that don’t focus on minions may want them for a reason other than damage. And this include tanks to distract the mobs for casters or a creature that gives utility/buffs like Spirit of Barbs from Diablo 2, none of which are possible with just increased damage. (and yes, I’m aware that the Occultist Familiar can learn how to heal and give elemental buffs, but these skills alone don’t make it last longer)

But I can see your point. I’m also willing to enjoy quasi-summoning when they are more an effective support rather than your main sources of damage. After all, you are already neglecting offensive/defensive skills in exchange of some guys that (theorically) can avoid all the mobs to jump at you all at once.

Wind Devils, Storm and Wendigo Totems and other similar summons still make sense to be Player Damage though, as they are more like extensions of the player’s power rather than servants.

Then we are both.:smiley:

I like minions in ARPGs, but I hate the lazy summoner style. Even thought it’s effective, it’s just boring and sucks up the fun of the game, just like Hearthstone cancer aggro-decks.

I think that when Crate designed pets/minions and the gear to support them on GD they wanted to avoid the D2 lazy Necromancer sindrome. Yes, most of the Necro’s minions weren’t made of thin air, and yes, if the boss kills all of them in a single AoE a pure summoner Necro would need to run away like knights facing a killer rabbit to another region and make his arabian spear dude bring him more fresh corpses (and maybe also pay some gold first to ressurect said arabian). But the Necro can right-click almost all the time on the boss with a 1 point worth Decrepify that costs low mana, and reduce him to a wimp for all his minions to hack into pieces. And the only thing you would need to be “stronger” is just a couple of +1-2 to all skills. But that didn’t stop the lazy summoner to appear in this game.

10

Pet builds are not lazy, that title of the popular build is misleading

11

That would just be awkward. Plus it would only help in the pets being used for their utility. It doesn’t solve the problem of spending 48 points on a hellhound being a total and utter waste if you’re not playing that one specific playstyle: summoner. It’s too all or nothing.

Are you also going to argue that a skill like Sigil of Consumption/Destruction should do competent damage regardless of whether you completely ignore Spirit/+%vitality damage/etc?
All good builds go out of their way to support their core skills/playstyles. Pure summoners keep stacking +%pet bonuses, hybrids do a combination of +%pet damage and party-wide buffs/debuffs, other builds stack conversion/+x% damage/attack speed/casting speed/etc.

It’s also a clear double standard if non-summoner pets suddenly start doing respectable damage when pure summoners have to sacrifice practically all their personal DPS in exchange for pet damage.

12

I don’t see how either of these make my idea not a good idea.

13

I used Briarthorn for the neat 14% phys res buff on my phys dmg Warder and it was completely viable till late Ultimate. It became too abusive to resummon him starting from Act IV as he started to die pretty often since then.

14

My only issue with how pets are done is that the gear/itemization/stats is too split for how the current system is.

It’s like having two games in one what with Spirit/Cunning based damage types and then Pet Based damage types. Not only does it hurt the amount of possible builds you can do but it also hurts the itemization of the game itself.

I’ve made plenty of summoner characters in the past and how often do you get those items/affixes that are made for a summoner but for whatever reason include Offensive Ability or % Spirit/Cunning Damage Types? Chances of getting something amazing are often ruined by unwanted “useless stats” even more so then other builds imo.

It feels tacked on to encourage build variety but the effectiveness of having to make a hybrid build that has to go for both Player and Pet stats really just lacks synergy.

Itemization and the amount of RNG in trying to get an item with good pet stats or not having pet stats makes the pool of affixes too large and split. Or you will have items that have a ton of text due to the combination of player stats, pet stats, item stats, abilities, components, augments and so on.

In any case the Pet System in Grim Dawn to me is rather rigid - same goes for Titan Quest. They are kinda fun but in the end feel clunky and have far too much RNG with itemization while adding more RNG for other builds that don’t want to see “% Pet Damage” and so on.

I don’t think we’ll see any major change to this system due to the large amount of work to achieve such a transition. However with future expansion(s) as the Level Cap increases that will also continue to show the issue (eventually/theoretically) when it comes to Mastery’s that have Pet Builds that will find little else to invest in or Non Pet Builds that have useless skills taking up space due to the Player vs Pet stat problem and itemization/devotion that will continue to get larger and thus more convoluted.

15

Minion design is a relic of titan quest, not simply a deliberate design choice. Due to engine limitations it wasn’t until very close to release that it was even possible to scale minions with player damage. By that point there was already a significant amount of work invested into the existing minion design and for their purpose it was relatively balanced so there is little benefit into altering that at this point. If this engine limitation didn’t exist in the beginning it seems very unlikely that pets would be balanced around their own unique “bonus to pets” item stats instead of player stats because it is naturally unintuitive design.

16

Ask yourself, how many chaos builds can make use of Sigil of Consumption/Destruction? How many vitality builds can? How many fire builds can? They can all choose to invest in Sigil of Consumption/Destruction and get their money’s worth. All for 24 points. Now ask yourself, how many builds can make good use of hellhound? There’s just one specific playstyle. And it even totals 48 points.

100% completely and utterly a non issue.
A. Summoners get lots more pets by wearing pet gear. If you’re not a full summoner and you’re wearing pet gear for more pets, then you might as well go full summoner, else you’re gimping yourself heavily since pet gear offers little in terms of personal offensive stats.
B. I suggested that mastery pets scale off the player AND pet gear. So a few (not all) of a summoners menagerie get stronger as well.

17

This game has no valid/good/enjoyable hybrid pet build. That migration is not hard. Add a variable to all bonus stats/damages from item (Whatever)that indicates whether it affects pets or not and start balancing. 4 days dedicated job.

18

Ask yourself, how many chaos builds can make use of Sigil of Consumption/Destruction? How many vitality builds can? How many fire builds can? They can all choose to invest in Sigil of Consumption/Destruction and get their money’s worth.

I’m not sure I follow. Why are you giving vitality/fire damage builds as examples? Obviously such builds would benefit, however marginally, from from Sigil of Consumption, the same way that certain hybrid summoners would benefit from points in the hellhound, because such builds will be using any combination of -%elemental/fire/chaos resist debuffs, party-wide +%elemental/fire/chaos damage buffs, items/constellations with both summoner/pet damage bonuses, +%pet bonus items, etc.

All for 24 points. Now ask yourself, how many builds can make good use of hellhound? There’s just one specific playstyle. And it even totals 48 points.[

Wrong. Most pure summoner builds actually only max the Summon Hellhound skill itself, with only a sprinkling of points in his other skills.

A. Summoners get lots more pets by wearing pet gear. If you’re not a full summoner and you’re wearing pet gear for more pets, then you might as well go full summoner, else you’re gimping yourself heavily since pet gear offers little in terms of personal offensive stats.

Your point? A summoner could also use “chance on attack” items that fires lightning bolts or even level 26 Devastation and that would be equally pointless.

B. I suggested that mastery pets scale off the player AND pet gear. So a few (not all) of a summoners menagerie get stronger as well.

Why does it matter? You’ve already pointed out that you’re more interested in the principle of the thing. Do you really think pure summoners need more +%pet damage? Unless the meta has changed drastically, the more pressing issue for summoners is usually juggling skill points, pet bonuses (besides damage, like skill/OA/resists) and personal survivability.

100% completely and utterly a non issue.

How would you know? You obviously have a very different idea of what a summoner build looks like.

Itemization and the amount of RNG in trying to get an item with good pet stats or not having pet stats makes the pool of affixes too large and split. Or you will have items that have a ton of text due to the combination of player stats, pet stats, item stats, abilities, components, augments and so on.

This, basically.
All the resources you need to make a hybrid are there, but getting the right combination of affixes takes an unreasonable amount of time/effort. I’ve already pointed this out multiple times, considering how some of the best summoner items are not epics or legendaries, but dual rare affix items. I’d say pretty much the only universal item to summoners is the Beastcaller’s Cowl.
Crafting RNG yet remains the same though.
The only reason I don’t go out of my way to complain about it is because it’s basically the same story for people looking for specific legendaries. Legendaries can be traded, though. Pulling a dual-rare affix MI out of thin air is significantly more difficult.

I still maintain that if you’re looking for exclusive player-scaling pets, look at how Diablo 3 turned out. It’s basically a horror story of what could have happened if this had been the case for Grim Dawn.
D3 Pets are basically just AI-controlled nukes with HP bars in a world where uniques can teleport to you, drop DoTs on your location, or spam Aoe control/tracking abilities at you. There’s a reason a lot of summoner players pretty much just stopped playing Diablo 3. It didn’t help that you needed very specific items to even make such a build competitive, because for all the millions of dollars that D3 generated getting a core summoner build to work was apparently beyond the devs.

If you’re a better person than me and you believe that the D3 devs were anywhere near competent, then something was obviously causing the whole player stat-scaling pet idea to backfire, something that even the D3 devs couldn’t fix.

19

Because the point is how many playstyles can incorporate it as an option and have it not be a complete waste of points.

This is completely irrelevant. Hellhound is just an example for a comparison of the total number of points that can be invested. Let’s face it, if the hellhound is only worth maxing the base skill for most pure summoners, then what’s the point of it taking up a whole row?

Your argument was that it wouldn’t be fair if a non-summoner’s pet(s) could do as much damage as a pure summoner’s would. Except a non-summoner wouldn’t have any where near many pets and thus would have less damage sourced by pets. It’s not a difficult concept.

Again, you made the point about fairness/double standard. If this change benefits non-summoners, it would benefit summoners too. Non-summoners wouldn’t exceed pure summoners so “fairness” is 100% a non-issue. Your supposed double standard doesn’t exist.

How summoners build is totally irrelevant. Notice how I refer to it as a playstyle? The issue is that said playstyle is completely disconnected from the rest of the game’s gearing. There’s pretty much no crossover like you commonly see on almost every ability and item in the game.

Not sure what your point is. I don’t particularly care for pure summoners beyond whether or not this change affects them negatively or too positively. Pure summoner in D3 and GD are way too passive for me to enjoy.

You wanna blame all of the D3 summoner issues on player scaling? That’s not an excuse to give up on an idea.

And hybrids don’t work, not if you want to finish Ultimate. You just end up being half as powerful in two areas than being strong in one. In this case you’re less than half as powerful in the pet category because you won’t have anywhere near as many pets.

20

This is completely irrelevant. Hellhound is just an example for a comparison of the total number of points that can be invested. Let’s face it, if the hellhound is only worth maxing the base skill for most pure summoners, then what’s the point of it taking up a whole row?

Calling the established meta completely irrelevant only makes you look ignorant.
And seriously, how many builds do you see max out EVERYTHING in the row?
Nightblades are pretty popular, for example. How many Nightblade dual-wielders do you know max out ALL the dual-wield skills?

For the record, each summon skill has a purpose. Granted some of these skills are over/underperforming, but unless you’re specifically trying to make a “Summon Familiar” or “Summon Hellhound” build (and Gee, why wouldn’t you be a summoner if you did that?) many of these purposes do not overlap. It’s obviously less than ideal to give the raven the “Mend Flesh” skill if you want it to focus on DPS, for example.

Your argument was that it wouldn’t be fair if a non-summoner’s pet(s) could do as much damage as a pure summoner’s would. Except a non-summoner wouldn’t have any where near many pets and thus would have less damage sourced by pets. It’s not a difficult concept.

Because you seem to assume that summoners are all about just having as many pets as possible. Which is stupid.
Quality matters as much as quantity.

How summoners build is totally irrelevant. Notice how I refer to it as a playstyle? The issue is that said playstyle is completely disconnected from the rest of the game’s gearing. There’s pretty much no crossover like you commonly see on almost every ability and item in the game.

Exactly. You don’t even care about summoner meta and yet you presume much about them. A cursory glance into the Classes and Builds section on any summoner build not named “Lazy Pokemon Master” should tell you that the meta has been steadily changing. Granted, as I said I wouldn’t mind if it got help getting to where it needs to go faster.
BTW it’s incredibly ironic that you’re arguing that that there’s no crossover between summoner gearing, because summoner builds usually employ party-wide buffs and debuffs. From there you’re pretty much only 1 step away from being a hybrid.

And hybrids don’t work, not if you want to finish Ultimate. You just end up being half as powerful in two areas than being strong in one. In this case you’re less than half as powerful in the pet category because you won’t have anywhere near as many pets.

I can’t believe such archaic ideas still exist in these forums. It was already wrong a year ago, nowadays it’s just stupid.

You wanna blame all of the D3 summoner issues on player scaling? That’s not an excuse to give up on an idea.

It’s not an excuse. I’m saying that D3 is a hundred million dollar game and (assuming you don’t believe the worst in people) the devs still haven’t figured out the summoner playstyle problem outside of introducing game-changing items.
Curiously, these items might as well be the D3 equivalent of pet bonus gear (Tasker and Theo - attack speed increase, The Tall Man’s Finger - health and damage increase).