What would you like to see in a Summoning-focused mastery?

Hi,

So I’ve been working on a mastery, and while I just got 2 skills completely ready, I’m just tweaking them so they don’t feel OP or UP.
There’s two I still have to work on, one if half ready (have to re-do a buff).

Here are a few pictures:

Imgur album

I’m mostly using the files already in the game, I might do some polishing later down the line and replace some .tex files with my own, icons would come first.

So I have to ask what would you people like to see in a summoning-focused mastery? I never really played a summoner before so I wouldn’t know too much about what’s missing.

Honestly I don’t know what else to do. Maybe the fire counterpart of the icy skeleton summon.

I hope you don’t mind me plugging some advice here but don’t worry too much about a skill being op or up until you have most of the mastery fleshed out. That should be one of your last steps in mod creation. I understand the excitement of making a new skill and just wanting to have a blast and that’s completely fine. Just a little tip to streamline the mod process and save time for now.

Any advice is welcome. Thanks for that, but I like making things work (at least) decently before moving on, that includes balance here. Plus it’s not like I had a deadline or a lack of free time… For now anyway.

I’ll keep that in mind for the future though.

I always enjoyed the golem types in D2. The different mechanics to each golem, could translate well, I think.

But my favorites summons, was the necromancer in Guild Wars 1, that was a ranged spitter . But the summons in GW1, were drain based, where they needed constant healing, or died by themselves.

I like this idea, but I never played GW1. The fact that a pet is ranged and not melee makes it all the more interesting; enemies have a limited number of slots to get attacked my melee pets (mostly 3 or 4).

I think I could translate this spitter with a fire skeleton having an innate buff that works like degen. He would use fireballs and shit and probably never use ranged/melee attacks.
It would synergize very well with the healing skill in the mastery as it also restore energy.

What do you think?

Well, you seem to be a creator. I am just someone with past experience.

Sounds good to have a mage type summon. Seems to be lacking in GD, other than the familiar…

It will be interesting to make this pet, there’s a lot of things that can be done with it.

Making another melee pet wouldn’t go well with other masteries like Occultist or Shaman, but it might be worth the try, even for learning. Because if I do another pet, and by your suggestion it would be a golem like in D2, I’d have to make a model and texture for that pet, and I never did it before. Always wanted to though, might be time for it.

Well, if I can give any other experience, I will keep an eye out on this thread.

The stone monster should be good enough for stone golem. Othe type of golem can use different texture applied (hope other guy able to do it). Scaled down the size and i think u good to go about the model.

Other than that,i really like your mastery so far since I’m a sucker for undead summoning! Hope it will go well and you will release it!

Well I never used golems in D2, and the game is in 2D… So I’ll have to make the texture from the ground up using screenshots of the golem if I ever do it. And if I do it won’t be for the first release nor the second.

Speaking of releases, here’s my plan:

The first version will be when I judge the basic stuff good enough (so I still need to do 2 pets including the mage, the other is currently a placeholder already in the UI on the screenshot; also an aura; finally the spells for the mage) to go live.

Second version will hopefully include the ability to roll affixes/suffixes for the mastery. If impossible (which I doubt to be the case) I’ll skip this. Also balancing the skills if needed.

Third version will be focused on polishing (creating new UI icons and perhaps even textures). And balancing the skills/item rolls as needed.

Then I don’t know. I’ll see later.

Well then, after failing again to make a buff for the healing skill, I’ll make the exclusive skill!

Which golem do you plan on using for your model, if you choose to build it from scratch?

Probably Clay Golem as it’s simpler.

With that I’ll probably have to make an animation set, and I have 0 knowledge when it comes to that.

Anywho it’s not for now and might be for never so don’t get your hopes up. When I release the first version I’ll tell my future plans and the golem might not be in it.

Well, i cant wait to see it. Hopefully golem makes it through, or a type of golem beast…

Good luck to your endeavors.

Animation sets are simple but the problem is atm we cannot import animations, only use existing ones and many creatures in the game cannot share animations. Luckily, the already existing golem animations are pretty much exactly what you want so you’re fine I think. What exactly were your plans for that?

As for the other golems (to anyone who was wondering) - iron golem is probably not a possibility to see in GD as it was in D2, the Fire Golem sure. Blood Golem, sure. But iron requires an item for it to be summoned and I don’t think this can be done in GD, perhaps with lua but … i dunno.

Already existing golem animations? Where? I don’t remember them existing. Is it TQ specific? The plans were just to make animations for a pet. I also had the idea of making a skeleton dog.

Is Blood Golem possible to do, really? If I do a golem I’d like it to be special and so to use the Blood Golem as a base.

Maybe be able to summon it with… iron bits. Takes a bit of money to summon an iron golem . Just an idea.

Would like to see my pets drawing aggro from the mobs and not have to spend so much time evading them. Any buffs from pets to be noticeable. Ability to equip pets if possible. Pet enhancements independent from player items allowing player to equip any armour he chooses.
Hope that helps.

I would love the pets to grow aggro but I’m not sure how it’s done to be fair, and it’s really annoying. So if anyone knows how to I’d love to know too.
EDIT: Nevermind I can make the pets taunt!

Buffs from pets for you and other pets? If that’s what you want then you got it.

I don’t think it’s possible but for the ice skeletor I made him equip different weapons every x levels. At max level he have a chance to spawn with 1 of 5 different weapons and 1 of 2 shields. May increase that in the future. May also be too OP.

Well I don’t really like the idea of making pet enhancements independent. Plus if you were to have independent buffs, the guy who equips gear that enhance pet abilities would be way too fucking OP. So no unless someone can prove me it’s a bad design idea.

Yeah you’ve never seen those golems ingame? There’s a few of them just after you meet edmund shanks (i think thats his name) as well as the ancient shambler. Just reuse those, they work well for what you’re looking for imo. I mean it’s your best option since like I said, importing animations and meshes are out of the question currently.

And yes, blood golem to my knowledge should be doable, it won’t be perfect but it would be close. From what I remember, the golem has a special formula for his life steal, but that is not a possibility. Though what you CAN do is make a melee skill and just make that his normal attack. In the pet skill config, you can have it set so it will chain abilities, so right after he hits with that melee skill, he will cast a heal. Make that heal instant cast and you won’t even see it animate. I believe you can even set it so it will ONLY cast that to the summoner. So, pretty damn close.

Heck, you can take it one step further. Make the heal skill an ability the player can level himself. Leave the golem at level 1 and max the heal, to be a wimpy golem but with a great heal.

Spammable self casted Chain lightning