Weapons & Equip Summoning Suggestions

I've recently tried the summoner class (on expert. figures xD) and I've surprisingly been enjoying it. However, I think the summoner doesn't really have a specialty role imo aside from AFK farming: Warrior/Melee is all about dealing damage and tanking it, Ranger is about dealing damage quick and fast so that the target dies before you actually do (also decent at applying status effects), and Sorcerer/Mage can be either a support with healing and status effects, or a glass cannon with high boss killing ability and a chain kill mechanic (I'm referencing the mana star mechanic here). So since the summoner doesn't have any apparent strengths other than "strength in numbers", this suggestion list will revolve around three strengths the summoner would have with them: Area denial, Total Immunity Denial, and the ability to ignore invincibility frames. Let's get to it!
Pre-hardmode Summon Weapons
Since the only weapons the summoner has in the early game would be the etherian turrets, the slime, the hornet and the imp, I thought we could expand on this part of the game first (I know a "Drippler SharK" or something will be added in 1.3.6 and will be in pre-hardmode, but I doubt one shark would be enough to deal with The Eye on expert mode.)
Physalia physalis colony- Summons a floating Man O' War, deals 10 summon damage, and can be fished in the ocean with 50% bait power (With a reinforced fishing pole and an Enchanted Nightcrawler so that this would be an early game weapon). Will Split itself into smaller versions of itself to attack, and will occasionally charge at an enemy to deal double damage and stick to it, continually doing double damage but losing its projectile attack (you can right click on your character with the item to force it to return to you). Has a chance to inflict poison and venom regardless of immunity (this is where the uniqueness of the summoner starts). Has a tooltip of "I REALLY don't think you should be holding this, let alone make it accompany you...". Costs 0 mana to summon because you're technically holding your summon in your hand as an item.
Observer's Lens- Drops from the Eye of Cthulu, deals 13 damage, and summons a miniature eye of cthulu. The mini Eye attacks by releasing homing eyes (servants of cthulu, but are smaller than the mini Eye itself and act as projectiles). Occasionally spins and turns into the phase 2 of the Eye, dashing into targets 3 times before reverting to its phase one stage. The dashes deal 1.5x the damage the mini Eye does with the projectiles. When the Shield of Cthulu is equipped, more homing eyes are released and they are released faster, and the mini eye now dashes 6 times, each dash having a small chance to crit (Mini boss summons and them being buffed by a bosses' expert item will be a common thing in pre-hardmode to help the summoner progress and obtain bee armor).

Eater chow- Has a chance to be dropped when a shadow orb is broken. Summons a mini Eater of Worlds as a summon which deals 5 damage per segment and starts off with 3 (the item card would say 5 summon damage per segment). This is unique as it behaves like the EoW or how Dune Splicers behave, in which they move quite fast and can change direction quickly but they require blocks to travel (These include minecart rails for the sake of sky travel). They latch onto a target for a few seconds, or until they are dead if targetted with the summoning item (Can also be forced to return to player when right clicking on character). They can breach the ground and fire vile spit which does 10 damage and can inflict Poison regardless of immunity. When the worm scarf is equiped, instead of only summoning one worm, two will be summoned instead, the second extra worm not taking up any summon slots, and the first gaining a green glow and will now ignore invincibility frames. They also share segment additions, so you could choose between bringing two long worms or two worms and 3 imps/hornets for fighting the wall. Consumes 0 mana for summon and has a tooltip of "Would be cute if it didn't wrap around people and spit all over the place".
Creeper Hive- Has a chance to be dropped when a crimson heart is broken. Summons a creeper which takes up a third of a minion slot and deals 8 damage. They can go through walls but will only attack an enemy that is out of their line of sight if targetted with a right click. They stick onto enemies to attack, and they don't produce I frames. When the brain of confusion is equipped, the creepers release 3 shadow versions of themselves each, attacking with the original creepers for a few seconds until they disappear, after which the originals pause, release 3 more for each original creeper, and attack again. The shadow versions only deal 3 damage so that these are strong enough to help beat expert skeletron and expert queen bee, but weak enough to not carry the player through the wall without wearing bee armor. Has a tooltip of "I don't get how so many are following the brain yet these are willing enough to fight it".
Pre-hardmode Summon Accessories
Fiery Maw Amulet-
Crafted with 5 shark fins, the Shark Tooth Amulet, and the Magma Stone. Minion attacks have a chance to deal On Fire! regardless of immunity, and they also have a small chance to inflict a new debuff called "Cut!", which cuts invincibility time by a fourth.
Hardmode Summon Weapons
Gastropod Egg Cluster- Has a 1/200 chance to be fished up in the surface of the hallow (the crystal serpent would have to be fished in the underground and cavern layer hallow to prevent unnecessary frustration). Summons a Crystal Zephyr Fish that attacks by firing crystal blasts which burst into a field of crystal dust upon impact (the crystal dust field could be the size of the blast radius of a bomb). The blast itself deals 35 damage, and the dust field constantly does 15 damage and doesn't induce I frames.
Holy Vein- Has a 1/200 chance to be fished up in the surface of the Crimson (the Bladetongue would have to be fished underground and in the cavern layer to prevent frustration). Summons a patch of small yellow eggs on use. The egg patch releases a plethora of baby Ichor Stickers which suicide into targets and inflict Ichor. The babies deal 20 damage considering this should release babies at a fast rate. The patch will always release 5 babies upon deployment for the sake of using it as an active weapon (like how the ballista and flamburst sentries can be used).
Cursed Fingerling- Has a 1/200 chance to be fished up in the surface of the Corruption (the toxicarp would have to be fished underground and the cavern layer to prevent frustration). Upon use, the first few segments of a world feeder would breach the ground and act as a sentry. The world feeder fires high velocity cursed flames which bounce from enemies and will ricochet towards enemies if it hits a tile (bounces 3 times). The world feeder always fires instantly upon deployment, making it a good weapon for active summoners (although I'm certain the ballista staff or flameburst staff would be a lot better at this when available).
Hardmode Summoner Equipment
This contains some changes to current summoner gear.
Amulet of the Cursed Maw/Amulet of the Slain god- crafted with the Fiery Maw Amulet, an avenger emblem, 10 souls of night, and 10 living ichor/cursed flame blocks. It increases minion damage by 15%, minions and their projectiles leave a trail of embers and cursed fire/ichor droplets respectively (both are unaffected by gravity), sentries release a field of embers and cursed fire/ichor droplets around them, any damage dealt by minions are guaranteed to inflict On Fire! and Cursed Flames/Ichor, regardless of immunity, and Cut! now has an increased chance to proc.
Forbidden Armor- The ancient storm is affected by the Summon Amulets, and now inflicts "Dust Denial", which increases the damage of the target but removes all I frames (as being a summoner requires you to be very good at dodging, this should be a fair balance imo. Let me know your thoughts about this though.)
Cursed Poisonfire necklace/Necklace of the Slain Titans- Crafted with the Amulet of the Cursed Maw/Amulet of the Slain god, 5 vials of poison, a pygmy necklace, 30 stingers, 15 beetle husks, and 5 life fruit. Does what the Amulet of the Cursed Maw/Amulet of the Slain god does, as well as making minions and their projectiles leave behind poison and venom clouds, increasing the chance for Cut! to proc, gives you massively increased life regen and a chance to leech life, and 10 more defense. These are the endgame summoner accessories.
Hallow Guard Armor- Crafted with each piece of the forbidden armor, and 10 of each mech soul. The head piece gives increased life regen and 10 defense, the Chest piece gives 3 additional minion and sentry slots, 30% increased minion damage, and 20 defense, while the boots give 2 extra minion slots, 50% increased movement speed, a small chance for minion attacks to inflict any DoT, and 10 defense. Having the full set equipped summons a hallow sigil (imagine the forbidden sigil but hallowed and 8 spokes), and pressing ability summons a hallowed sandstorm, which scales its height accordingly but can be a maximum of 30 tiles tall, releases a large field of hallow dust which lingers for a long time and tries to home onto targets, and inflicts "Dust Denial".
Tiki Armor- Pressing the ability button with the entire set equipped now activates "Power of the Ancients"; I frames for every enemy on the screen is now 1/4 their original length, minions attack faster, you and your team mates move faster, but the effect will immediately end and you will lose half your health if you are hit. The effect itself lasts 5 seconds, uses 180 mana, and has a cool down of 30 seconds.
Spooky Armor- Pressing the ability button with the entire set equipped now activates "Fuel for the Fire"; all attacks, those from sentries, minions, team mates, etc, can now inflict enemies with a long lasting version of any DoT debuff. Additionally, all DoTs now deal damage two times faster, however attacks from enemies now guarantee you to be debuffed with a stat debuff (slow, ichor, confused, etc.) and a normall DoT debuff while it is active. The effect is toggleable, and consumes 200 mana to toggle on.
Stardust Armor- The stardust golem's clap deals 90 damage and leaves stardust in the pattern it already has, can attack with a laser that also leaves stardust and deals 30 damage but ignores I frames, and can attack undeployed with a stardust spear that leaves a trail of stardust and a stardust field upon impact. Additionally, minions, sentries and their projectiles leave stardust fields when attacking/hitting, and have a chance to inflict "Stardust Infection", making the host release stardust fields periodically, and cuts their I frames by half. The trails and I frame reductions stack with those inflicted by the Cursed Poisonfire necklace/Necklace of the Slain Titans.


Welp, that's all i can think of right now. These may make the summoner look OP but considering how hard it is to play summoner currently, i think it should be the true glass cannon instead of the mage. Also, for the sake of making summoning easier, right click now forces minions to focus on the target and prevents minions from gathering back to you. They can also be forced to retreat to you by right clicking on your character. By the way, I'd like to see what you guys think of all this; are these too OP? should they be nerfed? I'm certain I'mma have to rework the Hallow Guard armor, but i can't think of how to do so. Anyway, Cheers!


 
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Great ideas. I like the additional AOE effects you're suggesting. It would really help offset some of the randomness of the pet AI.
I just played as Summoner and found I always ran with a magic weapon as primary. Do people really play summoner without a regular weapon? Or do summon weapons actually hit like a sword when used? (would explain why the wiki always says of prefixes "only affects the initial summon"). I would prefer all the magic weapons that say in the description "summons a x" to be summon weapons that don't count to minion limits. Like the Nimbus Rod and Vilethorn. That would provide summoners with their own direct damage dealing that gets buffed by summon damage modifiers and wouldn't require them to dual class to survive.
 
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Great ideas. I like the additional AOE effects you're suggesting. It would really help offset some of the randomness of the pet AI.
I just played as Summoner and found I always ran with a magic weapon as primary. Do people really play summoner without a regular weapon? Or do summon weapons actually hit like a sword when used? (would explain why the wiki always says of prefixes "only affects the initial summon"). I would prefer all the magic weapons that say in the description "summons a x" to be summon weapons that don't count to minion limits. Like the Nimbus Rod and Vilethorn. That would provide summoners with their own direct damage dealing that gets buffed by summon damage modifiers and wouldn't require them to dual class to survive.
hey thanks! some mad lads (i.e. yrimir) actually do play summoner with only summon weapons. i'm fairly certain that almost every summon deals contact damage, therefore you can kinda use the staff to summon them on top of enemies (i have a very hard time doing this though). when i try to summon-only a boss, i usually use one of the sentry summons from OOA such as ballista or flameburst as "primary weapons" since they fire immediately upon use (this also means that my index finger is going through hell every time :) ). as for some magic weapons dealing summon damage, i was thinking about suggesting to transfer the "missile" weapons and the stuff they make be a separate subclass for summoner, with the right click allowing the player to charge an attack and do something special, but i'm too caught in school and building to suggest for a while xD


Edit: corrected myself and added some stuff.
 
I've thought about making a post to suggest changing the damage types of those weapons, but worried about a backlash from the Magic users that don't want to lose them.
I did just create a suggestion about 3 new summon staffs here: Summon Staves: Flamesting, Jimmy Staff, and Jimmy Star Staff
I designed them as needing earlier staves to be crafted as I don't think any summon weapons are direct, crafted upgrades from previous staves.
 
I've thought about making a post to suggest changing the damage types of those weapons, but worried about a backlash from the Magic users that don't want to lose them.
I did just create a suggestion about 3 new summon staffs here: Summon Staves: Flamesting, Jimmy Staff, and Jimmy Star Staff
I designed them as needing earlier staves to be crafted as I don't think any summon weapons are direct, crafted upgrades from previous staves.

i just read it, and it's really cool actually. i'd suggest the jimmy staves to do something similar to flamesting though so that summoners at least have something else to do other than do bullet hell xD
 
To make things more straight forward and direct (btw not good with stat-ing ideas so it's up to interpretation)
Pre-Hardmode:
Fungi Staff & Shroom Suit - A sentry summon that can be fished in Glowing Mushroom Biomes; crafted from glowing mushrooms
Skull Staff - A summoning weapon that can be dropped from Cursed Skulls from the Dungeon
Hardmode:
Hungry Staff & Flesh Armor - A summoning weapon that drops from the Wall of Flesh; can be crafted from flesh chunks

I got nothing from here

Side note: All these ideas were interpreted without the Old One's Army having any play in this given that I play console and don't have access to that event
 
Something very relevant: The game as it currently is is not balanced for pure Summoners, because being a Summoner and also using another weapon at the same time is more effective. This is especially true in the early game. If pure Summoners were strong enough on their own, mixed Summoners would be OP. Something to deal with that would be necessary to bridge the gap. And if an early-game summon was comparable to an early-game player, it would be incredibly powerful for mixed players.
 
Summoners' "thing" usage-wise is fire-and-forget -- their minions can do damage without further attention. That's also their thing balance-wise -- you set them off and let them maintain DPS, while you either evade or join the fun with other weapons. Sentries likewise, except for renewing or moving them as needed. The class may start late, but as it advances it becomes quite powerful. That said, we could use a starter summons -- perhaps just making the slime staff more accessible (say, dropping from King Slime, or as an uncommon drop instead of an ultrarare one) would do.

Nimbus and Crimson clouds almost fit, not as minions but as sentries. But that would seriously limit them, especially not letting people put two or three clouds out at once (barring OOA/Tavernkeep bonuses). Then too, they're not as flexible as other sentries -- other sentries either attack anything in a wide field of view, or anything within a significant range. Might be best to keep them as magic weapons.
 
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