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Summon Mechanics (CS)


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In short, they are very, very strange. Not that this is a huge surprise. Leave your sanity at the door, etc.

 

Here's what I've figured out through testing so far.

 

1. Non-Simulacrum Summons do not get stronger with character level. A level 24 and a level 14 character summon exactly the same creature.

 

2. Non-Simulacrum Summons do get stronger with the Summoning Focus trait. Each level of Summoning Focus increases a shade's chance to hit by 12%.

 

3. Simulacrum Summons are unaffected by the Summoning Focus trait.

 

4. Simulacrum Summons do get stronger with character level. A goblin summoned by a lvl 24 character has a 90% chance to hit against a Sith Warrior. A goblin summoned by a level 19 player has a 60% chance. A goblin summoned by a level 14 character has a 30% chance. It looks like every increase in character level increases the level of simulacrum summons by one as well. This tracks exactly with how summoning mastery works in that every summon level gained by the traits adds 6% to chance to hit.

 

5. The level of the monster you soul capture doesn't seem to track with the level of the monster you summon like you'd think. A summoned quick ghast has an 8% better chance to hit than a summoned ghast when both are summoned by level 14 characters. However, a shade summoned with Summoning Focus 3 has a 53% chance to hit an enemy ghast but only a 20% (hard coded minimum) chance to hit an enemy quick ghast. I can't quite figure out what's going on here, but it looks like Simulacrum summons end up close to your character level regardless of the level of the enemy you soul captured.

 

A few thoughts on what this testing implies: Summons will never do much damage because they will never be significantly higher level than your player characters. Summoning focus is a poor investment because in the long run Simulacrum will outperform other summons because they don't get stronger with you as you level. When deciding what to soul capture, the level of the original enemy may not be a big deal. Focus instead on immunities and useful stuff it casts.

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I suspected simulacrums level with you. The drake I captured long ago can still hold its own in a fight, despite being a lower level specimen when I encountered it.

 

Ultimately, the best summons are ones that buff your party so the PCs can do more damage. Anything with group battle frenzy, like an eyebeast, is very useful regardless of how much damage it does on its own. And something with immunities or lots of health is handy just as a meat shield.

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#1 and #2 we knew, but #3 and #4 are fascinating! Thanks for testing this.

 

#5 is especially fascinating. The higher-level enemies tend to have the best immunities and useful abilities anyway, but this does speak up in favor of a very few lower level creatures, like the Quickghast (+8 AP, stun attack) and the Vampire (nullity attacks).

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#1 and #2 we knew, but #3 and #4 are fascinating! Thanks for testing this.

 

#5 is especially fascinating. The higher-level enemies tend to have the best immunities and useful abilities anyway, but this does speak up in favor of a very few lower level creatures, like the Quickghast (+8 AP, stun attack) and the Vampire (nullity attacks).

 

Does nullity work against mob abilities? I considered capturing a vampire, but I wasn't sure whether it would actually function.

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Does nullity work against mob abilities? I considered capturing a vampire, but I wasn't sure whether it would actually function.

 

All the monsters I've seen inflicted by nullity (including player-summoned ones) have used their abilities completely normally. Quite unfair really, when you consider how devastating nullity can be on player characters.

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  • 3 years later...

Sorry to necro this but I haven't seen any other topics going into summon mechanics and I thought I'd share my recent findings.
I've been doing some tests and comparing to the game files. It appears that each summon spell has an assigned level:


Call Beast = 5

Minor Summon = 10
Summon Aid = 18

Arcane Summon = 25

it appears that each summon brings out a random creature that has a default level within 25% lower or higher than the assigned value. [Edit: It might just be a flat degree of 5 levels lower or higher. The pool of monsters available was skewing my results, and I just now noticed that Call Beast can summon a level 1 creature]
{Update} After further testing the lower end tends to extend farther than the higher end. I adjusted the value to 28 and was still able to get Lv.18 summons.

 

The summoning focus trait will then increase the monsters level after it is summoned, it does not appear to effect the pool of monsters picked from.

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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