Sprites The Summoner Rework - New weapons, armors and more!

[yudgefudge]

This is just to eradicate summoner impurity i'm sorry red
Summoning can either be seen as the weakest class (purity) or the strongest class (impurity) but both agree with one thing - uniqueness.
Every class has their cool gimmick. Melee has their damage reductions, flasks, melee speed, and all that jazz. Ranged has their stealth mode & ammo, and Magic has their mana and lifesteals.
What does summoning have?
Everything.
The entire summoner class is a gimmick that was different enough to broken away from magic. Throwing tried to be that, but poor execution eventually doomed it to be removed in 1.4. can I get an F in the chat.
Summoning had a better time, partly, but many things slowly seem to throw (pun VERY intended) it onto the chopping block, and we don't want that happening, so I composed a rather medium-sized reworking suggestion to make summoning their own class, and break them away from magic.

Mechanics​

We're gonna add a new summon type: Travelers (for lack of a better name). They act like the Bee Gun. summoning minions that don't last very long, they just go to a target and hit them, disappearing. I think its the perfect way to make summoners fight with their minions, while still dealing their own special damage!

Weapons
The Bee Gun and Bat Scepter are travelers.
Now, the summon weapons.
You can craft a Slime Staff from 10 Wood, 15 Gel, and 2 Fallen Stars.

Living Wood Leaf

Summons a small sapling to fight for you.
Summon type: Minion
Attacks by shooting small leaves at the opponent, meanwhile trying to hit the opponent.
Damage: 7
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 20
Crafted from 10 Leaves (gotten from breaking leaf blocks) at a living loom.


Eater Beamer

Shoots off 3 tiny eaters.
Summon type: Traveler
Damage: 6
Mana: 8
Knockback: 0
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 12
Obtained by smashing a Shadow Orb.

Snow Flinxer

Shoots a flying Snow Flinx, which bounces off walls once, then rolls on surfaces for 14 blocks.
Summon type: Traveler
Damage: 19
Mana: 10
Knockback: 1.5
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 21
Dropped by Snow Flinxes with a 5% chance.

Man Eater Stave

Acts like a real Man Eater.
Summon type: Sentry
Damage: 30
Mana: 12
Knockback: 0.5
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 25
Crafted from 10 Stingers and 8 Jungle Spores.

The Hornet Staff now has 18 damage.
The Imp now has a 19 use time.
One last thing. The Panic Necklace now boosts minion damage by a measly 6%. The Sweetheart Necklace boosts minion damage by 10%.
Armor
I can't sprite armor. I'm sorry.
Say hello to Living Wood armor!
Living Wood armor
Crafted from 40 Leaves and 60 wood.
Defense: 7 (2, 3, 2)
+9% summon damage
+5% traveling damage
+5% minion speed, sentry fire rate, and traveler speed
+1 minion

Pharoah armor is now a summoner armor! I'm lazy! We all win!

Pharaoh armor
Defense: 11 (5, 6)
+17% summon damage.
+10% traveling damage
+10% minion speed
Set bonus: +1 minion

Hardmode
Wyvern Staff (thanks @LinkTheTerrarian!)
A reskinned Stardust Dragon
Damage: 22
Knockback: 1
Mana: 6
Velocity: 8
Sells for 6 gold.
Crafted from 10 Souls of Flight and 6 Adamantite/Titanium Bars.

Shadowflame Staff
Damage: 42
Knockback: 1.5
Mana: 11
Velocity: 17
Inflicts Shadowflame for 4 seconds.
Shoots a Shadowflame Apparition

Spider armor boosts traveling damage by 17%.

Slimer Staff
Minion
Damage: 30
Knockback: 0.5
Mana: 12
Velocity: 11
Can pass through blocks. Follows the bat AI.
Dropped by Corruption Mimics with a 16.67% chance.

Ichor Sticker Staff
Damage: 28
Knockback: 0.5
Mana: 12
Use time: 25
Buff: Ichorstick
The ichor squid will fight for you
Sentry
Dropped by Crimson Mimics with a 16.67% chance.
Fires at the same speed of the Golden Shower.

Pixie Staff
Damage: 25
Knockback: 1
Mana: 6
Use time: 13
Buff: Pixie
The pixie will fight for you
Dropped by Hallowed Mimics with a 16.67% chance.
Counts as half a minion, not a whole one.
Acts similarly to Spider summons, except that they fly. Pixies move in swarms.

Ectoblastm Staff
Damage: 76 (traveling)
Knockback: 1.5
Mana: 8
Use time: 15
Shoots blasts of ectoplasm.

Optic armour shows its face!
Defense: 29 (9, 10, 10)
Boosts summon damage by 25%.
Boosts traveling damage by 20%.
+2 summons.

Chlorophyte Headdress:
Defense: 6
Boosts summon damage by 26%
Boosts traveling damage by 18%.
+2 summons.

Set bonus: All your minions inflict Ichor/Cursed Flames (corrupt/crimson)
Tiki armor boosts traveling damage by 23%.
Spooky armor boosts traveling damage by 30%.
Stardust armor boosts traveling damage by 45%.
Stardust cells are travelers. They home. Deadly Spheres as well.

​

What do you think?

​

 

[Companion Cube]

This would remove the need for the living wood wands. Good, those things are a pain.

 

[The Storm]

Summoners are peasants

Honestly summoner does need an update, and these seem like fairly good ideas, especially the travelling summoners which would add much more variety.

 

[Companion Cube]

I agree with storm diver, the travellers are a great addition to keep summoners active in using their weapons

 

[Leaper]

These are all good ideas, i especially like the Man Eater Stave.

 

[Jetstreme ∞]

My favorite is making the new gun a summon weapon. The bat scepter should also be one.. anything that summons a sentient being should be able to do summon damage

 

[Companion Cube]

My favorite is making the new gun a summon weapon. The bat scepter should also be one.. anything that summons a sentient being should be able to do summon damage

Don't take my hellwing, please!

 

[BrusselSprouts693]

This doesn't stop impurity, it only makes it even more powerful. Have a minion to shoot stuff you cant reach pre-bee, and the hornet staff kills all even as a side thing.

 

[The Storm]

This doesn't stop impurity, it only makes it even more powerful.

Maybe while wearing a full set of Summoner armour all non-summon damage is reduced by 25-50%

 

[J Bame]

The Crimson & Nimbus rods are sentries, and the Bee Gun is a traveler.

No. Don't do this, they don't even make sense as Summoner weapons (how can you consider a rigid cloud with no sentience a "loyal minion") and taking away weapons from another one just to add content to another one is always bad. I can somewhat see the Bee Gun but leave the clouds alone, they are part of their "AoE Spells" that make it fun.

Eater Beamer

Shoots off 3 tiny eaters.
Summon type: Traveler
Damage: 6
Mana: 8
Knockback: 0
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 12
Obtained by smashing a Shadow Orb.

Snow Flinxer

Shoots a flying Snow Flinx, which bounces off walls once, then rolls on surfaces for 14 blocks.
Summon type: Traveler
Damage: 19
Mana: 10
Knockback: 1.5
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 21
Dropped by Snow Flinxes with a 5% chance.

There are two problems with this idea of "traveller minions": The first one is that both of these weapons are terrible and i'll still use a Golden Bow over both even if I have no notable gear for it.

The second, and the most apparent is that you can't make them good. Currently summons are made as weak as they are because you are always going to have a secondary weapon adding to the total DPS, and two bads end up making a good. If you start adding weapons that benefit off of those massive damage stats of Summoner armors you end up making the class extremely good since you removed the only weakness it had. So you have to rebalance the entire class just to introduce this weapon type into the game.

Man Eater Stave

Acts like a real Man Eater.
Summon type: Sentry
Damage: 30
Mana: 12
Knockback: 0.5
Crit chance: 4%
Use time: 25
Crafted from 10 Stingers and 8 Jungle Spores.

This one is strong. A strong sentry like this is exactly what summoner needs in Pre-Hardmode. Really like this one. That recipe is probably too cheap for something so powerful, I can get this before EoC currently.

Living Wood armor
Crafted from 40 Leaves and 60 wood.
Defense: 7 (2, 3, 2)
+9% summon damage
+5% minion speed, sentry fire rate, and traveler speed

Pharaoh armor
Defense: 11 (5, 6)
+17% summon damage.

Both of these are pretty eeh stat wise. They are both incredibly subtle (+17% is nothing when your base damage is as low as 7) especially with just one minion. I'd make their set bonus (they don't have one apparently) be a +1 minion slot, because right now I prefer ore armors over this.

 

[Companion Cube]

The second, and the most apparent is that you can't make them good. Currently summons are made as weak as they are because you are always going to have a secondary weapon adding to the total DPS, and two bads end up making a good. If you start adding weapons that benefit off of those massive damage stats of Summoner armors you end up making the class extremely good since you removed the only weakness it had. So you have to rebalance the entire class just to introduce this weapon type into the game.

The travellers can an be weak on their own to balance out for the higher armor stats. What is the problem with that? It gives summoners something to do idle and adds a new gimmick of tracking based weaponry to the game. It would make people who want to focus on dodging and avoiding damage able to just hold down the trigger to fight still, but at a weaker rate.

 

[The Storm]

No. Don't do this, they don't even make sense as Summoner weapons

They make sense as sentries, like the Lightning Aura Staff.

 

[J Bame]

The travellers can an be weak on their own to balance out for the higher armor stats. What is the problem with that? It gives summoners something to do idle and adds a new gimmick of tracking based weaponry to the game. It would make people who want to focus on dodging and avoiding damage able to just hold down the trigger to fight still, but at a weaker rate.

I already explained what the problem with this is. If they are too weak to the point where they are unusable without minions (basically the current design), you are never gonna bother using them instead of something stronger from another class. If they are strong and usable without having something summoned then summoner is broken because they are not supposed to have strong weapons alongside their powerful minions. You can't balance something like this.

They make sense as sentries, like the Lightning Aura Staff.

They don't make sense as sentries. They are not summoned conventionally, they don't attack or aim, they are not sentient (the OOA turrets are clearly "living", even if they are based on inert stuff), they are not used similarly to them (with sentries you just cast them once and let them deal with stuff, the clouds you have to recast constantly if you want to use them properly), they don't do anything that would let you call them a minion. They are as much of a summon as the Magnet Sphere and the Rainbow Gun, and I don't see anything for those two.

 

[Companion Cube]

I already explained what the problem with this is. If they are too weak to the point where they are unusable without minions (basically the current design), you are never gonna bother using them instead of something stronger from another class. If they are strong and usable without having something summoned then summoner is broken because they are not supposed to have strong weapons alongside their powerful minions. You can't balance something like this.



They don't make sense as sentries. They are not summoned conventionally, they don't attack or aim, they are not sentient (the OOA turrets are clearly "living", even if they are based on inert stuff), they are not used similarly to them (with sentries you just cast them once and let them deal with stuff, the clouds you have to recast constantly if you want to use them properly), they don't do anything that would let you call them a minion. They are as much of a summon as the Magnet Sphere and the Rainbow Gun, and I don't see anything for those two.

So why not let travellers have their own damage type added to armor to keep from getting it to powerful. Even if it's on the weak side, you get more consistent damage than most other things, like guns using non chlorophyte bullets. It's a trade off.

You say that the sentries are alive. May I introduce you to the lightning aura staff.

 

[LinkTheTerrarian]

For Hard mode you should put in a Wraith Staff, which will summon a Wraith that is faster than the enemy version and is also able to go through walls, dealing contact damage to enemies in its way. It also will deal 35 damage.
Next up: Wyvern Staff, that will summon a Wyvern that acts like a weaker version of the Stardust Dragon, base damage is 5 with only 1 summon. You can also increase its length and damage by using the staff multiple times, as long as you have a higher max minion amount.
For armors: Here's a simple change that will make summoner better in Hard mode. We need to include a summoner helmet for each armor set like Cobalt, Palladium, Mythril, Orichalcum, Adamantite, Titanium, Hallowed, and Chlorophyte armor. They will all basically increase the max amount of minions and their damage.

 

[Companion Cube]

For Hard mode you should put in a Wraith Staff, which will summon a Wraith that is faster than the enemy version and also is able to go through walls, dealing contact damage to enemies in its way.
Next up: Wyvern Staff, that will summon a Wyvern that acts like a weaker version of the Stardust Dragon, you can also increase its length by using the staff multiple times, as long as you have a higher max minion amount.
For armors: Here's a simple change that will make summoner better in Hard mode. We need to include a summoner helmet for each armor set like Cobalt, Palladium, Mythril, Orichalcum, Adamantite, Titanium, Hallowed, Chlorophyte, and Shroomite armor. They will all basically increase the max amount of minions and their damage.

Shroomite? Shroomite is the ranger armor. I like the rest except for the wyvern staff, since the multiple segments part is kinda busted in dps for so early in game, and can only be justified for the endgame. But overall I like your ideas.

 

[LinkTheTerrarian]

Shroomite? Shroomite is the ranger armor. I like the rest except for the wyvern staff, since the multiple segments part is kinda busted in dps for so early in game, and can only be justified for the endgame. But overall I like your ideas.

Updated my post, now also listed the damage of the Wyvern and the Wraith staff.

 

[Companion Cube]

Updated my post, now also listed the damage of the Wyvern and the Wraith staff.

That seems like the wyvern staff would actually be pretty good if you got a crowd to chain a bunch of attacks. I like it.

 

[BrusselSprouts693]

Building off of what J Bame said, I think there's only one sensible way to balance summoner - make the minions really bad, but the armor really good with summoner/traveler boosts. (For example, hornet staff does 8 damage and the armor triples it, instead of having it do 19 and the armor ups it by 30%.)

 

[yudgefudge]

Umm, I think your underestimating the Travelers. The highest armor boost summon even has is 66%, and the highest boost you can get from Summon accessories (counting my sweetheart necklace) is 40%, totaling in 106%. Before that sounds extreme, ranged has a total boost of 91%, not counting stealth, Melee has 69(nice)%, and magic has 61%.
Take the Snow Flinxer. It has a base damage of 25 (counting the Bee armor & Sweetheart necklace increases) with a 21 use time, which totals in a rough 75 DPS. Even with the Stardust armor, it totals with only a 114 DPS.
Now, let's take the Eater Staff, which you called "useless" and "a golden bow is worth more". It essentially has 18 raw damage, then counting the Pharaoh armor bonuses, it totals with 24 raw dmg. Its use time is 12, which will total in a rough 120 DPS.
Lastly, the Golden Bow, which I'll be pairing with Jester Arrows. It has a raw damage of 21 (bow+arrow) and has a use time of 26, which totals with about 48 DPS.
I've gone off track. Where was I even going with this?