Is it just me or do the summons your companions get (like Old Scratch's Bone chant and the Crab hermits Summon Crustecean Crawlie) become utterly pointless after L15 or so? I never paid much attention until tonight. I'm Level 28 and Old scratch is L26. Was doing the duck of Death fight on boot hill brought in Old scratch for some relief summoning to help with all those mobs that are in the fight. Summon up the skeleton and in the firrst round it takes one hit and dies. So I made him first mate and the next fight I summoned the skeleton. ITS level 9??? So the summons don't scale apparently? I mean seriously at least my Skarakeet pet levela and at level 28 and has enough health to last a couple rounds.

I'm not looking for a free companion for every fight but the summons creature should scale to the summoners level health wise at least if not damage wise. The only thing I used these summon's for early on was a free target for the enemy to draw fire from my compaions to do the real damage. Now thier useless because a L9 skelton or crawlie basically gets 1 shot.

If nothing else the spell should be change to a better version when the companion gains a promotion.
Am I the only one annoyed with this? and if this has been posted before my apologies.

Recently hit 50. Even my very best summoned bone-drake was almostkilled in a single hit. Truely, the usefullness is none and not based ion the talked about hitpoints/survivability. I stalled the fight "waiting" for him to actually hit something. At his low level, even making contact is doubtful. That doesnt even address the lower level ones. I have pulled the shooter minion (middle level) out a few times now. Its almost comical to watch. Then I become annoyed at the delay of time and regret pulling him out.. lol

Two points:

First, I'm in Mooshu now, level 50. I have no trouble with the summons as is-- if you summon the new unit behind your own guys.

If you summon him into the middle of the enemy, which is probably how you trained yourself to use this spell, of course he's going to get annihilated.

By summoning him behind your own guys, he will take a turn or two to catch up to the battle, which means that your normal troops are much more likely to have gotten the "aggro" of the enemy mobs.

This means your wee summon can catch up and do what he is supposed to do: provide consistent, annoying, but slowly cumulative damage that can tip the fight. He'll also spoil epic talent triggers on the enemy and, yes, eventually, he'll pull an attack that would otherwise have struck you.

Second point-- that will all be moot soon.

Because I've requested some tech changes to make summons scalable.

As always, be careful what you ask of ol' Ratbeard: you might just get it.

Ratbeard on Nov 28, 2012 wrote:

Two points:

First, I'm in Mooshu now, level 50. I have no trouble with the summons as is-- if you summon the new unit behind your own guys.

If you summon him into the middle of the enemy, which is probably how you trained yourself to use this spell, of course he's going to get annihilated.

By summoning him behind your own guys, he will take a turn or two to catch up to the battle, which means that your normal troops are much more likely to have gotten the "aggro" of the enemy mobs.

This means your wee summon can catch up and do what he is supposed to do: provide consistent, annoying, but slowly cumulative damage that can tip the fight. He'll also spoil epic talent triggers on the enemy and, yes, eventually, he'll pull an attack that would otherwise have struck you.

Second point-- that will all be moot soon.

Because I've requested some tech changes to make summons scalable.

As always, be careful what you ask of ol' Ratbeard: you might just get it.

Thank you for listening, Ratbeard! While I can see your point that the summon can still be useful, I think this change will make it more fun to use

Ratbeard on Nov 28, 2012 wrote:

Two points:

First, I'm in Mooshu now, level 50. I have no trouble with the summons as is-- if you summon the new unit behind your own guys.

If you summon him into the middle of the enemy, which is probably how you trained yourself to use this spell, of course he's going to get annihilated.

By summoning him behind your own guys, he will take a turn or two to catch up to the battle, which means that your normal troops are much more likely to have gotten the "aggro" of the enemy mobs.

This means your wee summon can catch up and do what he is supposed to do: provide consistent, annoying, but slowly cumulative damage that can tip the fight. He'll also spoil epic talent triggers on the enemy and, yes, eventually, he'll pull an attack that would otherwise have struck you.

Second point-- that will all be moot soon.

Because I've requested some tech changes to make summons scalable.

As always, be careful what you ask of ol' Ratbeard: you might just get it.

Gotta admit, it never would have occurred to me to summon up Scratch's pirate behind our own lines instead of out front. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks too in advance for letting them scale up with us, at least to some degree.

Ratbeard on Nov 30, 2012 wrote:

Maybe I haven't fully figured out the aggro mechanic yet, but it sure seems like summons and pets are able to attract the enemies with plenty of Rank 2 or Rank 3 Loud players standing next to them.

This is an over-simplification, but it should point you in the right direction:

Aggro is created by dealing damage; a unit with Loud will produce more aggro per point of damage dealt (and the converse for the Peaceful talents).

Otherwise, everybody comes fresh out of the gate on an even footing. In this case, the enemies are going to prioritize (a) nearby units and (b) units they can kill quickly.

So... you know... you can probably imagine what happens when you summon a wimpy skeleton right next to the enemies...

Oh, I get it. That makes sense. I was wondering why enemies would try to hit me at the start of combat. They try though ... they try... they just end up missing me.