Matthew525011 on Nov 6, 2019 wrote:

Forgive the semi-snarky comment, but I don't think 2 single melee summons (the skeletal pirate and wyvern) that have ~1000 health, do ~100 damage per attack, have terrible stats unless scratch-buffed, and only one epic talent are particularly good at "dying for you." If you summon them early, any sensible opponent will just ignore them and let their pirate's/companions' epics or their incidental AOE damage take the summons out. Even the skeletal corsair and Stygian Chorus aren't much better. The corsair does solid damage and represents a legit threat if you can't hide and are running low on shields, sure, but that assumes that you've scratch-buffed the corsair. Otherwise, a single round spent hitting with a single unit it will probably be sufficient to kill it. Stygian Chorus is obnoxious if scratch-buffed, sure, but it's not broken or game-winningly so. And if it's not scratch-buffed, the chorus is a complete meme. A single first strike+riposte, venge + relent, or ow + burst is sufficient to kill one, and their stats are so mediocre that you're very likely to not miss.

The trained summons are just not worth wasting a tempo on most of the time. At best, you get a scenario where you trade 1-for-1. You spend a round summoning, they spend a round killing the summon. More often than not though, if you use a trained summon, your opponent will probably just ignore it, and let their epics take care of it. Congrats! You've just wasted a round for *maybe* 100-200 points of chip damage if your summon got a hit off before it died.

Don't get me wrong, the main summons from gear *are* problematic (because you can't trade with them at a 1-for-1 or better rate), but trained summons are a joke.