Clockwork17
Retinazer
Plus, having it scale with Summoner makes sense. You’d have to balance around it being classless, and then any non-Summoner gets a free decently powerful “summon” for either free (stupid) or by a minion slot (which they can expend, therefore making it awfully unfair.) If you make it stackable, then it’s in a weird limbo position where Summoners buff it, but only indirectly. Just make it Summoner, for Pete’s sake!
Dapling
Queen Bee
My original point was that minions already do that. Melee mage and ranger already can expend minion slots for free damage by using any minion and making it classless doesn’t even change that. There’s literally no reason to make it not summoner unless you want it to be in a weird spot where you can’t buff it with gear period.
4PointDragon
Spazmatism
Every class gets a summon slot by default, throwing in any more thru accessories or buffs is classified as multiclassing (which is something everyone is gonna do unless you're doing a strict monoclass run); the game is quite literally built to let every class do a bit of summoning, no strings attached
this, on top of the fact that there aren't true classless weapons, would just make it.. weird. it'd be the first true classless weapon (or just yet another classless accessory), it'd have to shift to a more utility-based effect since its damage would not longer be able to be buffed, and it'd have to likely be extremely weak either way due to being classified as either pre-boss or post-one-boss.
_Noodle
Steampunker
I didn't explain it properly, my bad.
What I meant was to make it count as a sentry in name only; nothing else.
In other words: Divine Torch becomes a mobile sentry that stays in the vicinity of the player, possessing inanimate objects (the torches) to attack with.
It would still pertain to the same core idea, and still scale somewhat similarly, but because it's considered a sentry, other classes can better utilize it (if they use OOA equipment to increase sentry slots).
The change would simply make it more accessible/viable for more people.
All weapon classes have some weird outliers that don't act like the others (fx Piranha Gun), so it wouldn't be totally out of place for Divine Torch to act like this while being a sentry.
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4PointDragon
Spazmatism
okay, that's fair--the issue arises, though, that it might make the divine torch too good.
the whole point is that you'd be sacrificing one or two of your summon slots later on for passive debuffs and extra effects; by using sentry slots instead (which you basically just don't get earlygame and you have can have a good amount of lategame) you give everyone access to powerful debuffs passively.
a dedicated torch god sentry could work, though--a brazier of some kind, maybe. it'd have to be truly stationary, though, and probably still rely on torches.
Big Sammich
Duke Fishron
Not necessarily. The fact of classless weapons not getting bonuses from any class-specific gear has already been brought up, but even then, it barely matters. A classless weapon only has to be as strong as the strongest on-tier weapon from any given class, since it will get the same boosts. And, besides, if you're just trying to stack as much numbers as possible for the express purpose of using a classless weapon... well, why shouldn't you be allowed to do that?
Summoner isn't lacking as much content as you think. The playstyle of Summoner means that having a small weapon count is less impactful, since the actions the player is taking are going to mostly be the same regardless of what minions and whips you're using. There are notable exceptions, of course, such as the Firecracker and the Spider minions, but those are generally few and far between. But if your goal is to try to increase the variety of gameplay one can take while playing Summoner, well, I'm not convinced this will do it. The only difference between someone using this item and someone not using it will be the quantity and type of torches in their arena.
I don't think this item is bad as a Summon weapon, and I don't think you should feel pressure to change it. It's your idea, after all, and I'm just some mook on the internet. All I'm saying is that, if it were my idea, it would be classless. My reasons for why are because I think having it be classless matches better with the divine, neutral identity of the Torch God, and it would be fun to have a weapon that can fit on any build regardless of class investment.
What tools, exactly? It's just damage and a debuff, neither of which Summoner is lacking. I want to make it clear that the reason I'm pressing this issue is because I think the basic idea is good and deserves attention. In my view, I'm encouraging you to think more about this concept. You have the right to decide whether you want to listen to me or not.
4PointDragon
Spazmatism
Okay, topic A first:
Frankly, i don't like the idea of classless weapons. period.
This is mostly due to the nature of the game, where you can either use a weapon from another class for the same purpose or monoclass and lock yourself out of tools.
the entire game was designed around this. "Classless" damage only belongs to a very specific set of items that are explicitly designed not to scale, or otherwise aren't even intended to be used primarily as weapons.
Topic B:
yeah no summoner does not have much going for it. 7 Pre-hardmode magic weapons (one of which is slime staff, so more like 6), 14 hardmode magic weapons (a bit more reasonable; summons are the most complex weapon type, but still doesn't leave much in terms of variety like other classes get.) 17 total dedicated armor sets (including the flinx coat, but 18 if you count forbidden armor; 8 of these are OOA armor sets.), and.. six dedicated accessories. (all the OOA accessories are lumped together, since they're all functionally identical and cannot stack.)
summoner relies a lot on global damage buffs.
Topic C:
Summoner simply does not have the debuff capability of other classes. Stardust Cell technically inflicts a DoT debuff? you can use a magma stone or imp staff for fire and a flask for whatever, sure. Pygmy and Spider summons both have acid venom.
..congrats, that's a total of 4 debuffs (3 if you consider the fact that SD Cell's "debuff" is just its main form of attack).
This would give it means to a couple more simultaneous debuffs. notably, ichor and curse flame without needing to use up your flask slot.
Oh, and regarding the accessory itself, summoner has no cool accessories. every single summon-specific accessory, without fail, is just a stat up. not a single summon accessory that does anything unique.
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Big Sammich
Duke Fishron
You insist that that classless weapons have such-and-such weaknesses, but provide no argument that these weaknesses must be kept when designing a new one. Why would we not be able to circumvent these problems? And why are these problems so significant that they completely eliminate the reasonableness of designing a classless weapon? If you just don't like the idea, and it's a matter of taste, well, I can't make you like them. But these arguments don't hold much water, in my eyes.
You're neglecting whips in your judgment of the class, as well as sentry summons. And how do flasks not greatly expand the debuff capabilities of the class? There are 8 flasks, and you're almost never going to need more than one, especially since ichor and cursed flames are mutually exclusive without building an artificial biome (which is totally valid and something I personally like to do.) And furthermore, why are you so attached to debuffs in the first place? They rarely contribute anything really exceptional to one's build. If you'd like to argue that debuffs ought to contribute more, that's a different conversation. This may read like just a jumble of talking points, but what I'm saying is, I think you're too attached to the idea of debuffs, and you're basing your argument on a flawed perception of how many debuffs the Summoner class actually has access to.
I definitely disagree with your points here about accessories. Some of them are simply problems with the core design of the Summoner class; not having "cool" accessories is a result of minions being very, very difficult to balance and modify. But also, the majority of accessories for other classes are just stats too. Most of the "cool" accessories that do really unique things are either not attached to a class or can benefit multiple classes. How can you consider movement or defense accessores not Summoner accessories, when the Summoner has more pressure than any other class to not take hits? Summoner is just not as limited as you think it is.
But none of this actually matters, because I'm not arguing against this being a Summoner item. I'm not telling you to change it. I didn't even say it was bad as a Summoner item; in fact, I explicitly said I didn't have a problem with you designing it this way. All I said was that if I were designing it, I would do it differently.
4PointDragon
Spazmatism
Wow, okay, i actually did forget whips n sentries. that was very stupid of me
uh
9 total whips (3 in preHM)
""9"" sentries (I'm lumping ALL the OOA sentries in here as just 4 unique sentries since they're identical and only get a power boost and a new sprite as they get stronger. oh and prehm gets a total of 1 non-OOA sentry)
honestly still not a lot to work with
anyways
The thing about classless weapons is that.. well, they're not weaknesses. they're intrinsic to the nature of being classless. the damage can't scale in any form with any type of accessory, hard-locking it to a specific point in progression. This could technically be circumvented by the nature of the torches itself, since damage could be changed between torches, but.. at that point it's free support for everyone with no cost.
I'd argue traps are the closest thing we get to classless weapons, but that's because traps need to be able to deal damage without a player source to run calculations off of. and, just like every other classless damage source, they have no means of scaling; their damage is determined by their point in progression.
Summoner does not get access to many debuffs every other class gets comparatively easily. No ichor, no Cursed Clame, Shadowflame; all of these are effects that some players will go out of their way to get for more damage when they're unlocked. on top of that, every other class has some way to inflict them reliably. I'm not saying that debuffs need to be better or something, i'm saying that debuffs are a tool a pure summoner simply doesn't get half the time.
i'd have mentioned frostflame here too, but summoner technically has frost hydra which NOBODY USES but it still inflicts the debuff so
The one benefit to having so few dedicated accessories is the ability to spec more into movement and survival, that much is true. still, there's very possible cool things that could be made without so much as touching the minions; extra summon tag effects, on-hit effects, temporary/accessory-bound summons and the like.
and i do understand you're not proposing that i change it, i'm just tryina explain the issues with classless in general when doing something like this
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Dapling
Queen Bee
Most Debuffs are almost always never worth applying or going out of your way for because they're comically weak compared to every other source of damage the player uses.
Let's see what new debuffs become available for each class at each stage of the game, to see if summoner can't reliably inflict as much debuffs as the others, just because I feel like laying it out like this to prove a point (let's also assume that we're playing a classlock challenge run where the only exception are tools like pickaxes and classless weapons because really, if you're fishing for debuffs then you don't care about the damage type used to apply them so there's no reason to make this comparison to begin with)
Pre boss (ignoring hell and dungeon progression skipping):
All Classes gain access to On Fire! due to Flare Gun (a classless weapon) being able to inflict it. Flare gun is one of the easiest debuff inflicters to use due to its high range and the ability to quickly switch to it by holding shift while your cursor is far away from your character, and, again, it's classless. On Fire! is practically cosmetic either way, so I'm not going to stress out about it.
5 debuffs for Melee, which gets access to Blood Butchered, Frostburn, Poisoned and Tentacle Spike's unnamed debuff from the beginning. Note that melee only gets 4 in corruption worlds due to the lack of a unique debuff on Light's Bane.
4 debuffs for Ranged, which gets access to Frostburn, Penetrated, and Poisoned from the beginning.
2 debuffs for Magic, which gets access to Frostburn from the beginning.
2 debuff for Summon, which gets access to Poisoned from the beginning.
Next up is the set of debuffs the Evil Bosses (brain of cthulhu and eater of worlds) give access to. This is when the player is first expected to enter hell and craft things out of hellstone, and is also when the old one's army and meteorites become available.
All classes gain access to Confused at this tier, due to the Brain of Confusion becoming available. They also all gain access to Hellfire, due to Inferno Potion becoming available. None of the new classes have any debuffs that the others don't also gain at this tier.
2 new debuffs for Melee (Total of 7)
2 new debuffs for Ranged (Total of 6)
2 new debuffs for Magic (Total of 4)
2 new debuffs for Summon (Total of 4)
Next debuff becomes available once Skeletron is defeated, granting access to the Dungeon and Shadow Chests. Even though Queen Bee unlocks the imbuing station and will likely be killed at this point as well, it doesn't grant access to any new debuffs as the only ones available in prehardmode are Poisoned and On Fire! which are available from the start of the game for both classes it would apply to.
1 new debuff for Melee (Total of 8), which is Shadowflame from Dark Lance.
Nothing for anyone else though.
After this point we kill wall of flesh, gaining access to a lot of new debuffs.
Cursed Flares become available for the flare gun, giving all classes easily accessible Cursed Inferno. Cursed Flares also have the highest infliction duration for Cursed Inferno in the entire game, so they should absolutely be considered when going for as many debuffs as possible (if you want to do that, for some reason)
4 new debuffs for Melee (Total of 12) including Frostbite, Ichor, and Midas
5 new debuffs for Ranged (Total of 11) including Frostbite, Ichor, Midas, and Shadowflame
5 new debuffs for Magic (Total of 9) including Frostbite, Ichor, Poisoned, and Shadowflame
5 new debuffs for Summon (Total of 9) including Acid Venom, Frostbite, Ichor, and Midas
Once you kill 1 mech, you get:
1 new debuff for Summon (total of 10) from Oiled.
You need to wear a ranged/summon hybrid armor for this debuff, but only 1 weapon inflicts it and it's a summon weapon.
Afterward there are no new debuffs until all three mech bosses have been defeated, where chlorophyte gives you:
1 new debuff for Magic (Total of 10) from Venom Staff's Acid Venom.
After Plantera, venom vials become available:
1 new debuff for Melee (Total of 13)
1 new debuff for Ranged (Total of 12)
Then Golem opens up OOA T3:
1 new debuff for Magic (Total of 11) from Betsy's Wrath.
And finally, we have pillars, which will bring us to our final totals:
1 new debuff for Melee (Total of 14)
0 new debuffs for Ranged (Total of 12)
0 new debuffs for Magic (Total of 11)
1 new debuff for Summon (Total of 11)
As you can see, Summoner never goes more than 3 debuffs behind the highest class (melee) at any tier of the whole game, with the exception of Post Skeletron where it briefly becomes 4 debuffs behind before going back to 3 in hardmode.
And this is ignoring one obvious nuance: One-off debuffs which are given to exactly 1 weapon. These debuffs will fall out of favor long before the end of the game or are on weapons you aren't exactly using for their debuffing value (with Betsy's Curse being the exception), so in my opinion they're not really relevant. 3 of these are even at the start of the game where they fall off almost instantly and never come back, which meant that the numbers were heavily skewed against summoner here as 2 of said debuffs were melee and 1 of them was ranged.
And this is also ignoring the fact that not all debuffs are equal, so you could probably cut out even more if you tried. I don't think anyone actually cares about Midas.
And this is even further ignoring that every individual whip tag is a debuff in the code just like all the ones I mentioned here. It proves my point even further, but I felt that it wouldn't be fair to include them. They're generally stronger than conventional debuffs anyway.
TL;DR this is a cool weapon and I really really would love to see it in the game, but it's not filling any kind of design void like you claim it does. Summoner can access debuffs just fine without it, and even if it couldn't, most debuffs are simply too weak for it to be a significant hinderance, especially damage over time ones. Ichor, the only one that's important for most players, is just as available for it as everyone else. Still should get added as a summon weapon so that it doesn't arbitrarily ignore damage bonuses.
4PointDragon
Spazmatism
Thank you, science side of
You have, with much incredible effort and astounding writing skill, successfully and indubitably proven me wrong
I concede my defeat
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