Well, it's about time. Summoner weapons were at first added as a gimmick, so naturally they were flung with the rest of the magic weapons and gained their modifiers.
The problem is that it doesn't really fit. A summoner doesn't care squat about speed or mana cost, and critical hits don't seem to apply either. What to do, what to do?
First step is to make critical hits apply to summoning. It can't be that hard. We can also safely remove mana cost entirely.
Well, let's get right to it and list the prefixes, shall we? Let's start with the equivalent of Mythical.
Omnipotent: +15% damage, +5% crit, +1 capacity, +15% knockback, +30% range.
Vengeful: +18% damage, +5% crit, +10% knockback, +50% range.
Crazed: -15% damage, +2 capacity, +15% knockback.
Bloodthirsty: +20% damage, +5% crit, -10% knockback, -40% range.
Fearsome: +15% damage, +20% range.
Commanding: +1 capacity, +30% range.
Tenacious: +60% range.
Demented: +8% damage, +1 capacity, -30% range.
Pitiful: -5% damage, -10% knockback, -20% range.
Disgraced: -10% damage, +10% knockback, +10% range.
Cowardly: -40% range.
Feeble: -15% knockback, -20% range.
Whoa, whoa! New vocabulary alert!
Range is the maximum distance at which a minion will recognize an enemy and give chase/start firing. It also affects the distance at which a minion gives up and returns to the summoner. Naturally we'll have to reduce the base range for it to be noticeable.
Lock-on distance will be within a quarter-screen length to the minion, and they'll give up when the enemy's off the screen. Subject to change by modifiers, of course.
I realize that modifying a weapon's capacity is not the easiest task. I propose that we associate the increased capacity with the minion buff icon. Your minion capacity is increased by a number equal to the one corresponding to the most recently-summoned minion, and updates every time you use a summoning item. I think it might be better to explain it through scenarios.
Say you have 7 ravens following you. Your armor gives you 6, and you have an extra due to its Omnipotent prefix. If you were to use a normal Pygmy Staff after that, the Pygmy buff icon is the most recent, and you get the +0 instead of the Raven's +1, canceling the oldest 2 Ravens. But if it's a Crazed Pygmy Staff, the +2 overrides the +1 on the Raven Staff, and you have 8 total: 7 Ravens, 1 Pygmy.
If you have both the Omnipotent and Crazed Raven Staff, and you have 7 already, as soon as you use the Crazed one, every raven now takes on -15% damage, but the Raven+1 buff icon becomes Raven+2. (It still reads "Raven".) If you then use the Omnipotent Raven Staff again, the Raven buff is refreshed and applies the +1 instead of +2, canceling the oldest 2 minions (this is crucial, currently the newest minion gets canceled for a summon beyond capacity) to summon a raven, and again giving all ravens (but not Pygmies) the +15% damage associated with the prefix.
I may only have succeeded in causing further confusion. Sorry! But there's just no way to explain this simply.
One more change is that all minions have their values updated when a summoning weapon is used or accessories/armor sets are changed.
Let me try to sum it up.
Each minion's damage is affected by the stats of the most recently-used weapon used to summon its type. Summoned ravens are not affected by the prefixes of the Pygmy Staff unless the Pygmies override them when max capacity is reached. However, their stats are updated if the player swaps in, for example, a Hercules Beetle for an accessory.
Naturally the Queen Spider and Frost Hydra cannot get modifiers that affect capacity. But Bloodthirsty and Vengeful are plenty to work with, no?
Quick idea: if you're holding a summon weapon and right-click, all minions of that type drop what they're doing and try to converge on the spot until you let go of it. Obviously not passing through walls. I eventually finished my train of thought on this thread:
Manual Targeting for Summoners
I think this is good for now.
