Calibold
Terrarian
When it was introduced, the summoner class was the odd man out of the big four. It lacked much of a distinct identity and was seen more as an offshoot of the mage class. With recent updates, the summoner has taken on more of a distinct identity, and right now is fully viable for a casual playthrough. It has full armor and weapon progression, distinct items and buffs, and is mechanically almost completely distinct from mages.
But one major aspect of the game hasn't really been updated at all for summoners: modifiers.
For most classes, your ideal weapon and item modifiers are obvious: every weapon modifier provides direct buffs, with a clear "best" modifier for every weapon and class; these modifiers all directly impact some aspect of the weapon; and variability in accessory modifiers can be used to either specifically boost an aspect of the class (i.e. melee speed and mana buffs) or offer further customization for your character build. Melee, ranged, and magic weapons all fit very well with the modifier system.
Summoners, however, suffer in this capacity for two major reasons:
1. Not every stat change actually meaningfully affects summoner weapons. Every weapon, depending on the modifier, can receive buffs or debuffs to their damage, critical strike chance, and knockback; and aside from non-swung melee weapons, all weapons can also receive buffs or debuffs to their speed. Furthermore, specific weapon classes can also gain specific modifiers to boost certain class features: size for melee weapons, projectile velocity for ranged weapons, and mana cost for magic weapons. Every stat change has a direct effect on those three classes, but summon weapons feel like an afterthought. Currently, they're grouped in with magic weapons for modifier types, which will be touched on shortly, but the way they're affected by modifiers is counterintuitive.
The two big problems are with speed and crit modifiers. Summon weapons are affected by speed modifiers, but rather than actually changing how fast summons deal damage, or how quickly they attack, speed modifiers only change how quickly the player can summon minions. This is both counterintuitive and almost completely useless, as summoners usually only need to go through summoning minions once, which is almost always done outside of battle anyway. This means that weapon speed has absolutely no impact in battle, which newer players may not realize. The only time summon weapons speed is relevant is for sentry spamming, which is both not really how sentries are intended to be used, and is also completely obsolete with the introduction of whips.
The other obsolete stat change is to critical strike chance, which is even more useless for summoners. Neither minions nor sentries are capable of dealing critical hits unless boosted by the Morning Star or the Kaleidoscope whips; and even when minions are able to deal critical hits in this way, their crit chance remains unaffected by their modifiers. I won't delve into whether or not minions should be able to deal critical hits, since that is outside the scope of this post and also delves into balancing questions which are more out of my depth than I currently am. However, it's undeniably obsolete for summoners.
What all this means is that optimizing a summoner build is more difficult and unintuitive than for other classes. Currently, most summoners are recommended to use the Ruthless modifier on their weapons. Ruthless boosts damage by 18%, but also reduces knockback by 10%, and it is the only modifier to boost direct damage by more than 15%. Out of all stat changes, knockback is considered the most useless; while increasing it is nice, it also has almost no impact on damage output; furthermore, many enemies resist or are outright immune to knockback. Because of this, summoners tend to use Ruthless in order to gain a slight boost to damage that would normally be better improved by other weapon classes' buffs to speed or critical strike chance, and being forced to sacrifice a boost which, while very low-impact especially with minions generally not having strong knockback, would still be nice to have. Unfortunately, this results in an awkward build and one that summoners would prefer an alternative for that would allow their weapon buffs to remain on par with other classes.
2. Summoner weapons are grouped with magic weapons for modifier class. As mentioned above, summon weapons can also receive magic weapon modifiers, meaning that one more of their stats can be changed: mana cost. Currently, almost all minions require 10 mana to summon, which is generally considered a holdover from when they were more synonymous with magic weapons. However, because minions almost never use mana outside of the initial summon, this means that improved mana cost is almost completely irrelevant.
Of course, unlike other stat boosts such as speed or possibly even crit chance, it's fairly obvious that mana cost only affects the initial summon, so even new players will quickly learn that they have no need to account for it. The main reason that being grouped in magic weapons is a problem that it prevents them from potentially having their own modifier class which can account for their unique mechanics, or at the very least, taking better advantage of universal modifiers.
There is one more reason that summon weapons would prefer not to use the mage modifier class, though it's admittedly more of a subjective argument, and that is that it keeps the summoner class from having a completely distinctive identity. Most of the recent buffs to summoners have helped in that regard, but having summon weapons use the mage modifier class gives the impression that they're still, at least a bit, a dependent cousin of the mage class. As a result, it helps insist on the idea that the summoner class is inferior to the other three. Again, this is more subjective, but it does suck that there's still these elements being held over.
Obviously, the question becomes what to do with summoner modifiers to make them more intuitive for newer players, and to help summoners receive that last little bump they need to really be as distinct as the other three classes. I've listed a few ideas, though obviously I'm not a video game dev so I don't know how difficult these would be to code, or how balanced they would end up being.
1. Speed affecting minion attack rate. This is the most obvious idea, though admittedly with how minions behave I don't know how feasible it would be on a technical level. Basically, any modifier that affects speed would, rather than changing how fast minions are initially summoned, adjust how quickly they attack, whether by adjusting their movement speed, rate of fire, or direct attacking speed.
2. Adjustments to minion critical strike chance. As I said above, I don't know why summon weapons can't crit, though I suspect there might be a reason for it. Regardless, I think they should have some interaction with crit chance boosts. Obviously the most straightforward solution would be to let minions crit like other weapons, but there are other solutions too. For instance, summon weapons could all have a base crit rate of 0%, meaning they can only deal critical hits through the use of modifiers. On an even more niche level, crit modifiers could also only take effect when minions are given the ability to crit through whips, actually affecting their crit rate during the temporary boost, though this would admittedly only be relevant for the endgame in its current state, so perhaps other whips during other stages of progression could also provide a crit buff.
3. Placing summon weapons in the universal or common modifier categories. As part of separating them from magic weapons, summon weapons could be placed in the universal or common modifier groups. These modifiers alter damage, crit chance, and knockback chance, with common modifiers also altering speed. Whichever category they end up using would probably depend on whether or not speed functionality could/would be changed. This is obviously the most simple way to disconnect summoner class from the mage class, but would at least help clean up a bit.
4. Summoner modifier category. Assuming that there are no changes with how summon weapons interact with speed changes or critical strike changes, giving them a separate category of modifiers which only change damage and knockback could help make things easier to understand and less awkward to build, but would also allow for summon weapons to have unique modifiers which can help balance the lack of speed adjustment and crit rate. For instance, one could consider an "optimal" modifier (comparable to rangers' Unreal and mages' Mythical) to be one that improves damage and knockback by 20% and 10% respectively; this way, summoners could have a modifier category which helps balance out their lack of stat type diversity with greater boosts to raw damage. Again, I don't know the balance on a modifier like that, this is more of a suggestion of how such a modifier might work.
5. Summoner modifier category: minion range. One of the larger-scale suggestions, this assumes that summoners have their own category, with any combination of the above, but with an added change, that being range. Much like size for melee weapons or velocity for ranged weapons, "range" would adjust the detection range of minions and sentries, enabling them to attack or fire at enemies that are further away, or reducing the range that they would normally be able to do so.
6. Summoner modifier category: minion slot filling. This is easily the most radical suggestion on here, but I think there's a good case to be made for it. Assuming again that summon weapons gain their own modifier category, this stat would adjust how many slots each minion fills. As an example of how this would work, prior to 1.4.0.1, minions from the Spider Staff would take up 0.75 minion slots, meaning that if a player had 3 minion slots, they could actually summon up to four spiders. This was changed for what I assume were balance reasons, but I think the base concept could potentially be applied here. Having modifiers that reduce minion or sentry slot occupancy by something like 0.2 or 0.25 could be a neat reapplication of this mechanic while also hopefully being balanced by the slot occupancy only being reduced by fractional amounts to prevent early game players from suddenly doubling their damage output. A further (though potentially even more outlandish) application of this could apply to accessories, with potentially an accessory modifier that gives you something like +0.1 or +0.2 minion slots.
A couple more notes:
- Everything I've been talking about would apply to minions and sentries alike. While sentries are kind of their own thing from minions, it's fairly akin to bows vs. guns in the ranger class, where they encompass two different subcategories of weapons, but in the case of summoners, both suffer from the same issue. I'm not sure if that was clear, but I'm here for my sentry bros as well, I love you sentries.
- I haven't brought up whips at all, despite some people potentially drawing parallels between minions with mages and whips with melee. It's pretty obvious though that in most cases whips are meant to be secondary accessories to minions and sentries, rather than a focal aspect of the class. Furthermore, I think their similarities to melee weapons is much better executed, with a very cool cross-class interaction, rather than just shoving summoners in the mage category. I don't discriminate though, so for all you whip maniacs out there, keep doing what you're doing, you're awesome.
For any of y'all who have made it this far, thank you for reading my (hopefully coherent) ramblings. I know this is a very niche issue to write for so long about, but as Big Summon's strongest warrior, I figured I should make a massive forum post about the one thing that's been bothering me for so long before Terraria reaches its final final final final update. To all you cool folks, thanks again, and keep on summoning.
But one major aspect of the game hasn't really been updated at all for summoners: modifiers.
For most classes, your ideal weapon and item modifiers are obvious: every weapon modifier provides direct buffs, with a clear "best" modifier for every weapon and class; these modifiers all directly impact some aspect of the weapon; and variability in accessory modifiers can be used to either specifically boost an aspect of the class (i.e. melee speed and mana buffs) or offer further customization for your character build. Melee, ranged, and magic weapons all fit very well with the modifier system.
Summoners, however, suffer in this capacity for two major reasons:
1. Not every stat change actually meaningfully affects summoner weapons. Every weapon, depending on the modifier, can receive buffs or debuffs to their damage, critical strike chance, and knockback; and aside from non-swung melee weapons, all weapons can also receive buffs or debuffs to their speed. Furthermore, specific weapon classes can also gain specific modifiers to boost certain class features: size for melee weapons, projectile velocity for ranged weapons, and mana cost for magic weapons. Every stat change has a direct effect on those three classes, but summon weapons feel like an afterthought. Currently, they're grouped in with magic weapons for modifier types, which will be touched on shortly, but the way they're affected by modifiers is counterintuitive.
The two big problems are with speed and crit modifiers. Summon weapons are affected by speed modifiers, but rather than actually changing how fast summons deal damage, or how quickly they attack, speed modifiers only change how quickly the player can summon minions. This is both counterintuitive and almost completely useless, as summoners usually only need to go through summoning minions once, which is almost always done outside of battle anyway. This means that weapon speed has absolutely no impact in battle, which newer players may not realize. The only time summon weapons speed is relevant is for sentry spamming, which is both not really how sentries are intended to be used, and is also completely obsolete with the introduction of whips.
The other obsolete stat change is to critical strike chance, which is even more useless for summoners. Neither minions nor sentries are capable of dealing critical hits unless boosted by the Morning Star or the Kaleidoscope whips; and even when minions are able to deal critical hits in this way, their crit chance remains unaffected by their modifiers. I won't delve into whether or not minions should be able to deal critical hits, since that is outside the scope of this post and also delves into balancing questions which are more out of my depth than I currently am. However, it's undeniably obsolete for summoners.
What all this means is that optimizing a summoner build is more difficult and unintuitive than for other classes. Currently, most summoners are recommended to use the Ruthless modifier on their weapons. Ruthless boosts damage by 18%, but also reduces knockback by 10%, and it is the only modifier to boost direct damage by more than 15%. Out of all stat changes, knockback is considered the most useless; while increasing it is nice, it also has almost no impact on damage output; furthermore, many enemies resist or are outright immune to knockback. Because of this, summoners tend to use Ruthless in order to gain a slight boost to damage that would normally be better improved by other weapon classes' buffs to speed or critical strike chance, and being forced to sacrifice a boost which, while very low-impact especially with minions generally not having strong knockback, would still be nice to have. Unfortunately, this results in an awkward build and one that summoners would prefer an alternative for that would allow their weapon buffs to remain on par with other classes.
2. Summoner weapons are grouped with magic weapons for modifier class. As mentioned above, summon weapons can also receive magic weapon modifiers, meaning that one more of their stats can be changed: mana cost. Currently, almost all minions require 10 mana to summon, which is generally considered a holdover from when they were more synonymous with magic weapons. However, because minions almost never use mana outside of the initial summon, this means that improved mana cost is almost completely irrelevant.
Of course, unlike other stat boosts such as speed or possibly even crit chance, it's fairly obvious that mana cost only affects the initial summon, so even new players will quickly learn that they have no need to account for it. The main reason that being grouped in magic weapons is a problem that it prevents them from potentially having their own modifier class which can account for their unique mechanics, or at the very least, taking better advantage of universal modifiers.
There is one more reason that summon weapons would prefer not to use the mage modifier class, though it's admittedly more of a subjective argument, and that is that it keeps the summoner class from having a completely distinctive identity. Most of the recent buffs to summoners have helped in that regard, but having summon weapons use the mage modifier class gives the impression that they're still, at least a bit, a dependent cousin of the mage class. As a result, it helps insist on the idea that the summoner class is inferior to the other three. Again, this is more subjective, but it does suck that there's still these elements being held over.
Obviously, the question becomes what to do with summoner modifiers to make them more intuitive for newer players, and to help summoners receive that last little bump they need to really be as distinct as the other three classes. I've listed a few ideas, though obviously I'm not a video game dev so I don't know how difficult these would be to code, or how balanced they would end up being.
1. Speed affecting minion attack rate. This is the most obvious idea, though admittedly with how minions behave I don't know how feasible it would be on a technical level. Basically, any modifier that affects speed would, rather than changing how fast minions are initially summoned, adjust how quickly they attack, whether by adjusting their movement speed, rate of fire, or direct attacking speed.
2. Adjustments to minion critical strike chance. As I said above, I don't know why summon weapons can't crit, though I suspect there might be a reason for it. Regardless, I think they should have some interaction with crit chance boosts. Obviously the most straightforward solution would be to let minions crit like other weapons, but there are other solutions too. For instance, summon weapons could all have a base crit rate of 0%, meaning they can only deal critical hits through the use of modifiers. On an even more niche level, crit modifiers could also only take effect when minions are given the ability to crit through whips, actually affecting their crit rate during the temporary boost, though this would admittedly only be relevant for the endgame in its current state, so perhaps other whips during other stages of progression could also provide a crit buff.
3. Placing summon weapons in the universal or common modifier categories. As part of separating them from magic weapons, summon weapons could be placed in the universal or common modifier groups. These modifiers alter damage, crit chance, and knockback chance, with common modifiers also altering speed. Whichever category they end up using would probably depend on whether or not speed functionality could/would be changed. This is obviously the most simple way to disconnect summoner class from the mage class, but would at least help clean up a bit.
4. Summoner modifier category. Assuming that there are no changes with how summon weapons interact with speed changes or critical strike changes, giving them a separate category of modifiers which only change damage and knockback could help make things easier to understand and less awkward to build, but would also allow for summon weapons to have unique modifiers which can help balance the lack of speed adjustment and crit rate. For instance, one could consider an "optimal" modifier (comparable to rangers' Unreal and mages' Mythical) to be one that improves damage and knockback by 20% and 10% respectively; this way, summoners could have a modifier category which helps balance out their lack of stat type diversity with greater boosts to raw damage. Again, I don't know the balance on a modifier like that, this is more of a suggestion of how such a modifier might work.
5. Summoner modifier category: minion range. One of the larger-scale suggestions, this assumes that summoners have their own category, with any combination of the above, but with an added change, that being range. Much like size for melee weapons or velocity for ranged weapons, "range" would adjust the detection range of minions and sentries, enabling them to attack or fire at enemies that are further away, or reducing the range that they would normally be able to do so.
6. Summoner modifier category: minion slot filling. This is easily the most radical suggestion on here, but I think there's a good case to be made for it. Assuming again that summon weapons gain their own modifier category, this stat would adjust how many slots each minion fills. As an example of how this would work, prior to 1.4.0.1, minions from the Spider Staff would take up 0.75 minion slots, meaning that if a player had 3 minion slots, they could actually summon up to four spiders. This was changed for what I assume were balance reasons, but I think the base concept could potentially be applied here. Having modifiers that reduce minion or sentry slot occupancy by something like 0.2 or 0.25 could be a neat reapplication of this mechanic while also hopefully being balanced by the slot occupancy only being reduced by fractional amounts to prevent early game players from suddenly doubling their damage output. A further (though potentially even more outlandish) application of this could apply to accessories, with potentially an accessory modifier that gives you something like +0.1 or +0.2 minion slots.
A couple more notes:
- Everything I've been talking about would apply to minions and sentries alike. While sentries are kind of their own thing from minions, it's fairly akin to bows vs. guns in the ranger class, where they encompass two different subcategories of weapons, but in the case of summoners, both suffer from the same issue. I'm not sure if that was clear, but I'm here for my sentry bros as well, I love you sentries.
- I haven't brought up whips at all, despite some people potentially drawing parallels between minions with mages and whips with melee. It's pretty obvious though that in most cases whips are meant to be secondary accessories to minions and sentries, rather than a focal aspect of the class. Furthermore, I think their similarities to melee weapons is much better executed, with a very cool cross-class interaction, rather than just shoving summoners in the mage category. I don't discriminate though, so for all you whip maniacs out there, keep doing what you're doing, you're awesome.
For any of y'all who have made it this far, thank you for reading my (hopefully coherent) ramblings. I know this is a very niche issue to write for so long about, but as Big Summon's strongest warrior, I figured I should make a massive forum post about the one thing that's been bothering me for so long before Terraria reaches its final final final final update. To all you cool folks, thanks again, and keep on summoning.
