I still think that the summoner's 'ultimate' ability is lacking, and it doesn't add any major power like the other mages. There's 2 different idea that I have for the summoner's ultimate:
1. Make the sacrificed creature explode causing a 2 Str attack to all surrounding spaces in addition to the heal.
or
2. Give the all of the summoner's cratures the flesh golem ability, with spill over damages to the summoner.
I agree with Baker, that the summoner's ultimate ability is lacking. Perhaps we should try out his first idea where her sacrificed creature explodes causing damage around it (enemies / allies alike) and drains the energy from it = 2+ self heal
Flesh golem is also a good idea. Community, we would like to hear your opinions too!
Are you kidding? It's practically impossible to kill a summoner 1v1 now with its current power.
I think it needs a bit of a rework, myself. Change the summoner bonus to only add +1 to the armor of summoned creatures (no attack bonus). Then change the sacrifice effect to make a 3 strength attack to all surounding squares, but only heal each visible ally for 1 health (visibility determined from the summoner's square).
This would be much more balanced than the current near invulnerable power they have. Right now you have to deal 6 damage in one hit, or the summoner just summons, makes an attack, sacrifices the creature, then sprints away. The only way to combat this tactic is to surround him (which requires at least 3v1 and is unbalanced).
I think that's pretty interesting to get some new feedback on the Summoner's power. Personally, I thought Sacrifice was a very potent power- especially for the end game- as I myself have prolonged my Summoner's survival in many cases where she would have been utterly defeated. I'd love to hear more from you guys!
I think a way his ability could be changed would be to :
Have any targets within melee range (friend and foe alike) take 2STR rolls against their defense and heals the guardians 1 damage, and the hero (1+total damage done by the sacrificed creature [either while alive or during explosion{up to you guys}] up to a max of 3).
This would keep the heals minimal because its only 1 (if its a summon than sacrifice move). Also this turns it into an offensive ability (which to balance can hit your own pieces) to help do some damage and not have the summoner at that point in the game be just a healer. And also this will help motivate the opponets to make a choice to whether or not the summoned creatures are worth killing or keeping alive (like the iron golem or the skeletons).
The summoner's power as it stands is strong enough. Being able to summon, then blow up the character would give the summoner life and 3 additional attacks (per square?) to each enemy, while STILL giving life. That is just ridiculously more powerful than the Meteor shower, and much better than meditation.
I have been using this unit a lot, I think it is very usefull and has helped me late game ona few occasions already. I will have to play a lot more rigth now but to heal 3 is pretty powerfull in my opinion, specially since you can sacrifice then summon again.
The thing is, if you give the summoner the ability to 'blow up' one of her summons and base the amount healed off of the daamge inflicted, you are no longer guarenteed 3 hps healed per turn, and could even miss entirely, leaving a very exposed summoner.
I just think that her ultimate ability isn't very exciting and/or active. I would rather have her blow up a skeleton in my face than spend turn after turn hunting her down. If the surrounding issue makes it too powerful, then make it adjacent, but i think that if you base the heal off of the damage dealt, you won't see super invincible summoners...you'll see more dead opposing characters or dead summoners.
"Exciting" and "powerful" are both pretty subjective. When you start comparing abilities like Meteor Shower to Sacrifice and Meditate, you're opening a Pandora's box for debate.
In gameplay, what is exciting and/or powerful often depends upon the context. If your Summoner already has full life, Sacrifice isn't all that exciting or powerful, but in the clutches of an onslaught, Sacrifice is a life safer- and in many cases- gives her the leverage she needs to pull off that final awesome attack (which can make the ability quite exciting).
Likewise, Meditate isn't all too exciting in and of itself (when compared to exploding meteors anyway) - but when used to chain together a devastating combo of spells like the Wizard does so well, it can be one of the most rewarding powers in the game.
The key idea behind Valor is to give your Mage definitive strengths that align with the concept behind their character. While some abilities are more subtle than others, I believe its using that ability in the right moment and the right time that makes it exciting.
This ability has always bothered me a little, and while I like the idea of sacrificing for the greater good, The fact that you can conceivably have +3 health every turn at the cost of only 2 cards is outrageous. A solution for this could be regaining health proportional to the total health of the summoned creature (so sacrificing the skelly would only give 1 health to the summoner). The problem with this is that it weakens the ability rather than giving it a much-needed boost in overall strength.
Now, at the risk of stepping on the toes of our venerable developer, I would like to propose a radical change in the summoner's 15 valor ability: Charm.
"Charm", or "Summon Steal" or something, would cost 2 cards, and would permanently take control of another player's summoned creature, which would behave as though it was just summoned (and thus, not able to move). I believe this sticks with the underhanded theme of the summoner, though it does move away from the necromantic idea.
I think this charm idea is powerful enough, but if you wanted to have even more fun with it, you could have it work on enemy Guardians (for a single turn, of course).
Cheers
Quote from: Aerotheos on August 31, 2009, 04:16:49 PM MT
Now, at the risk of stepping on the toes of our venerable developer
No need to worry about this, Aerotheos. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I strongly encourage that these thoughts be shared, even if I may not necessarily agree personally. By sharing ideas, you stimulate dialogue and promote new perspectives that help enrich the game.
That being said, while I like the Charm concept, it suffers from a strong scalability problem. First, having a fixed ability to steal summons for only 2 cards nullifies any merit in casting future summon spells. Consider that even an elemental with a mana cost of 2 really costs 3 cards (the 2 you spend as mana and the spell itself). Secondly, if the creature or guardian is enchanted, you now gain the cost of those enchantments as well, further complicating the unfair advantage such a Charm ability would give to the Summoner.
In the board game version of Hero Mages, the Psionist actually had the ability to either move or attack with possessed units. It was discovered, however, that this latter ability was very abusive when used on enchanted units (as described above) which is why we removed it from the game.
I certainly find it amusing that there is such an extreme polarization in opinions about the Summoner’s Sacrifice ability. On the one hand, we have players that feel the power is totally lacking, while on the other, we have players that feel it is too powerful. I would urge to everyone to consider that the strength of the ability is highly dependent on context just like all of the Mage’s abilities.
Gaining 3 Life a turn requires a minimal expenditure of 2 cards, resulting in a gain of only 1 new spell a turn and have a continuously depleting mana supply to boot. If you continually opt to use this ability, you’re hurting your potential to cast new spells and gain an advantage. An enemy mage properly wielding spells and attacks can easily overcome this; units that will find difficulty are lone guardians. And, if such a game does come down to Guardian vs. Summoner (or any mage for that matter) the probable outcome is always victor to the Mage. Realistically, guardians have a small window to defeat a mage before they recover magical energy or they are doomed to defeat (unless you can form an agreement with another surviving mage to help you get your revenge).
Again, context:
Sorceress easily has potential to roll 20+ attacks for 2 cards, but only if she is positioned in line of sight of several enemies.
Fighter Mage has potential to outrageously boost his own or allies stats for 2 cards, but in doing so sacrifices potential attacks to multiple enemies and his ability to cast new spells.
Wizard has potential to chain an incredible combo of magic assuming the proper cards are drawn and that he is not threatened by enemy attack (his low Defense of 12 very often assures he never gets this opportunity).
Aero, problem with charm is, it is too limited. All other 15 valor abilities can be used whenever, while she would require a summoned creature on the field to perform.
Actually since I last posted here, I havnt had a problem with that ability. Sure she gets 3 health each turn, but its just like a healing touch just 1 less mana. Meanwhile she usually has to sacrifice a 2nd card to even use it. So its like a 2 card ability. I think it is fine where it is now.
Quote from: Ross Przybylski on August 31, 2009, 05:11:21 PM MT
If you continually opt to use this ability, you’re hurting your potential to cast new spells and gain an advantage. An enemy mage properly wielding spells and attacks can easily overcome this; units that will find difficulty are lone guardians. And, if such a game does come down to Guardian vs. Summoner (or any mage for that matter) the probable outcome is always victor to the Mage. Realistically, guardians have a small window to defeat a mage before they recover magical energy or they are doomed to defeat (unless you can form an agreement with another surviving mage to help you get your revenge).
Again, context:
Sorceress easily has potential to roll 20+ attacks for 2 cards, but only if she is positioned in line of sight of several enemies.
Fighter Mage has potential to outrageously boost his own or allies stats for 2 cards, but in doing so sacrifices potential attacks to multiple enemies and his ability to cast new spells.
Wizard has potential to chain an incredible combo of magic assuming the proper cards are drawn and that he is not threatened by enemy attack (his low Defense of 12 very often assures he never gets this opportunity).
I think that the real problem is that the summoner can make his attacks without ever being in LOS of an opponent. Even then, if you put together a good strategy and finally get your opponent in LOS, he can get away and heal back to full (every time, as opposed to other wizards with a heal card or two).
For instance, if I'm fighting a sorcerer I can stay out of LOS and maneuver within melee range before the sorcerer can hit me. With a summoner, though, he can throw a skeleton in the path (or paths) open to me and never enter LOS, causing me to take occassional damage (which I can't heal without a lucky draw or a paladin - ie 2v1). Since I can never sprint and attack, the odds of me ever getting off a melee attack (even with FM flash) are pretty low.
Maybe you could consider some alternative fixes to this. One would be to greatly reduce the range a summoner can summon a free skeleton (I'm thinking 1 to 4 squares away - they are supposed to be guardians afterall).
Currently a solo summoner's strategy is to just keep running and whittle down the opponent through skeletons. This would be a fine tactic, but the absolute only way to catch a determined summoner in LOS is to get lucky and draw a teleport card. Even then, you only get one chance to kill him before he just sprints athrough a choke point and blocks it with a skeleton.
This is the problem with the summoner. It's not that any particular power is too good, but that there's absolutely no way to combat the proper tactic with a summoner. Even if you drop the skeletons as soon as they appear, that just leaves the summoner with more movement than you because you'll rarely be able to sprint.
Demoyn, a summoner can only have 1 skeleton (not counting the summon cards) at a time, all you have to do is kill the skeleton and slowly chase her cornering her.
The Summoning skeleton ability has never, ever been hard to overcome (honestly, I put her last on my hero choice list.)
And yes, you can flash to her, all you have to do is get close enough out of loS so that when she moves away, she is still only 9 spaces away from you.
And you said "they should be guardians after all" You do know that the 2 characters that are not yoru hero are "guardians" right? So does that mean they can only be close to your hero? How about the 5 valor ability is practically as good as any card in the deck (Sorc: lightning bolt = lightning bolt, Wizard: Discard card, draw card (like the mana at end of turn), FM: Mini teleport) The summon skeleton is already watered down from the card version (2 skeles ---> 1).
I agree with diesbudt, I don't think i've ever heard of the Summoner's skeleton being a problem. The LOS argument doesn't really hold up, as you could do the same with your own summoning cards.
I think that the problem people have with the +3 heal is that if your mage is gone and you only have guardians left, opposing 15 point summoners become neigh impossible to kill. But the same if pretty much true for all other hero mages as well, but just in a different way. With a mage and any kind of stun or imprisonment, you'll have two free turns of wailing on on the summoner before she can heal, usually not a problem.
There are plenty of cards that also hurt the summoner more than other mages, namely unsummon, meteor swarm, fireball, and blizzard. Certain characters also put a huge cramp in the summoner's play style, number 1 being the barbarian...for obvious reasons. Samurai can dispatch a skeleton for a costly 2 cards, but i've done that more than once. Maybe the warrior is a stretch, but being able to dispatch two summons, or one and wound something else.
Yea like Baker said.
FM 15 valor means he could always have 18 def (more if he has previous enchantments on him)
Wizard = More mana, faster cards = more viability to shutdown non heromages
Sorc - LoS metero shower (this is the only one that wouldnt be a too big problem with guardians, but combine it with a free lightning...)
So for 15 valor the Summoner isnt that bad, when your hero is alive +3 hp isnt a big difference (since you usually gotta get rid of 2 cards for the heal).
I digress... in any circumstance, anytime a hero is left against guardians, the hero has the advantage.
for ross:why didnt u improvd summoners abilitys in more better way,u only makd it more easly to kill.
her ability changes doesn't make her more killable... she still can heal 3 damage every turn for only 1 card and no mana. which is amazing. She is the second hardest hero to kill if played right in the 'endgame'
Gorstak-
Though the Summoner did receive -1 to her Defense like most of the other characters, her abilities have been improved in a subtle, yet drastic way. First, she can now summon up to 5 skeleton warriors simultaneously where as before she could only have 1. You can position her in the corner, safely, and pump out troops to send into battle.
Second, her Sacrifice ability has switched to become her 10 Valor ability and Summoning Mastery is now 15. This means she can quickly recover 3 life by summoing a skeleton and then sacrificing it for only 2 cards (the equivalanet of having unlimited Healing Touch spells) PLUS her skeleton can attack before it is sacrificed (making it the best healing ability in the game).
ok,u are right,hope more ppl will play it now.
i think the summoner is still unbalanced.
its too unbalanced, that some players (me included) dont like to play random heroes because of the summner. And in like 90 matches, i have seen it only when random heroes (i think) but its only my opinion.
maybe some game statictics would say if the players choose the summoner more than other heroes or not.
Kefkam, you never explained which way you think she is unbalanced?
Because it was my opinion that she is weak, yet just ask vinman where in a 2v2 and all i had left was a summoner, and was against 5 units she almost came back to win killing 3 units (1 hero + 2 guardians) and severly damaging the others.
She just requires people to play her right, like every other unit in the game.
Quote from: diesbudt on August 08, 2010, 10:56:30 AM MT
She just requires people to play her right, like every other unit in the game.
I keep telling people this about every unit. Thanks dies ::)
I think she is the least played hero when ranked chosen heroes. In all my games, I can only remember 2 fight vs her and she lost.
if she had 2 more def i would play with her.
Quote from: kefkam on August 17, 2010, 07:01:47 PM MT
I think she is the least played hero when ranked chosen heroes. In all my games, I can only remember 2 fight vs her and she lost.
if she had 2 more def i would play with her.
Undoubtedly, the reason she is played less than say Fighter Mage/Sorceress is because she's a premium hero. The Summoner is exceptionally powerful which is why we had to reduce her Defense from 13 to 12 in the last balance update. The ability to summon an endless horde of creatures allows her to relentlessly advance on the enemy from the safety of a secluded area. When you don't have summon cards, you can produce up to 5 minions for only 1 card a piece. And, her 15 Valor ability is the equivalant of always having a Healing Touch whenever you need, making her one of the most difficult heroes to kill if used properly.
Raising her Defense by 2 would put her on par with Fighter Mage which would drastically imbalance her (especially when coupled with her unlimited healing ability). As an alternative consideration, what if she could use her summon skeleton ability more than once each turn? I think this would add a lot more fun to her gameplay, but this also raises balance concerns as well as inconsistencies in the "1 action per turn rule".
We are planning to add new "unlockable" powers to each of the characters that will allow players to swap out various abilities to customize their Heroes. Maybe one of these powers could be "Catalyst: Summoner may use Skeleton Warrior more than once per turn." and you could swap this out with Sacrifice or Summoning Mastery.