I looked around and didn't see this addressed anywhere, so wanted to bring it up. Old Scratch comes with the ability to cast a skeleton pirate. Which is great, except the strength, durability, usefulness of the cast pirate does not improve as Old Scratch does. As Old Scratch levels up, his casting ability should be improving with each level and so it would make sense that his casted skeleton Pirate should improve too.

My Old Scratch companion is level 25 but still casting a Skeleton Pirate with a health of 135 (or there abouts) which means it gets killed if it gets hit even once at this level. Since, most enemies have double tap / blade storm etc. at my level (28), having the skeleton pirate out means that the bad guy is going to get to hit twice that turn.

I don't know if the same thing happens with the crab that old nat Larson (crown shop) casts as I bought it at a higher level and haven't leveled that companion up much. I would like the casted creatures to advance with the witchdoctor that casts them so they don't end up with useless spells.

I have read the posts regarding the Witchdoctor companion's summon, the skeletal pirate.

I have a suggestion, preventing the summon ability from becoming completely useless, and keeping the companion from becoming overpowered. Which I am sure is in the back of everyone's mind when it comes to summons like that. If you can have spells grow in potency as we pirates grow, why not keep a simple growth system in place for summons?

Keep a summon 4-5 levels below caster. As the caster grows, so does the summon grow. Every level.

I am concerned about the Witchdoctor class too. The Witchdoctor will eventually be able to call a skeletal pirate to the field. At first it may seem good, but what keeps that from becoming a complete waste of time, and becoming completely useless at later levels?

I noticed a Witchdoctor can later on summon a Wyvern to the field. And I saw One Eyed Jack's wyvern back when we had that little Alpha meet. What keeps such a cool ability from becoming completely useless and a waste of space in the power board? Have that ability too, grow every level 4-5 levels below the caster.

And not to have the Wyvern simply replace the skeletal pirate. The Witchdoctor should be able to have both summons. Since you were the ones that gave that ability to the Witchdoctor.

Now, I did read the post in which you actually responded with "We want to make it to where you have to decide whether to spend a turn summoning the minion is worth the turn or not" but, there is simply no question about it. It is not.

So, you have a Witchdoctor class that gets some very usefull summons. For about 5 levels. Then it just becomes a waste of space. That was one thing back in alpha, after having discovered that unfortunate issue, that SERIOUSLY dismayed me playing Witchdoctor. Because I knew that I was given those really cool and sweet summoning abilities that would later in the game simply become worthless and a waste of time.

So, why even have them? It is more of a novelty that you can use for 5 levels and then, disappears. In my opinion, that does not enable a Witchdoctor to call allies to the field. It simply enables a Witchdoctor to keep himself or an ally from being hit once by wasting a turn. And yes, in your last post you said that THAT was the whole point. But, why go the length of creating skeletal pirate sprites and skeletal wyvern sprites and giving those abilites to the Witchdoctor as powers for a simple thing like that?

Same concept as describing a Myth wizard as a solo specialist and a minion user when in the last half of the game he becomes one of the weakest wizards around, with minions that won't even last 2 turns.

I am sort of rambling now, because I keep trying to describe this issue to where you could really see the 'magnitude' of this little issue. But I think that was the best that I could do.

Thank you for reading, as always.

From my own experience, Old Scratch has the power "Bone Chant" as both Undead WItchdoctor and when promoted to Undead Bokor. This power seems to only summon a level 6 skeletal pirate.

Now, upon his promotion to Undead Houngan, Bone Chant became converted into "Cadaver's Chanty" which summons a level 15 skeletal corsair, with the epic talent of Quick Adjust.

Still, a level 15 ally when I'm level 38 leaves me wondering how well his accuracy and dodge ratings deal with those of the creatures I am fighting at this level.

I was actually a little bit surprised to learn that this wasn't the way the summoned skeleton worked. In about every other RPG (not just MMO) that I can remember, your summoned allies are the same level as whoever summoned them. It seems like it would be easier for the developers to balance if it worked this way, i.e. the Skeletal Pirate can be expected to do approximately as much damage as, say another companion's area of effect attack might do or slightly less since it has the bonus ability to take a few hits and distract. Then, once you get a greater variety of summons, the tactical decision becomes "do I need a skeletal heavy, caster, melee, flyer, etc . . . what does the situation call for? and how can I best counteract the group of mobs I'm facing?" That seems to be a more interesting choice then "where do I place this skeleton so he can absorb one hit and die?" At that point, call the ability "Bone Shield" and give it 3 charges

Under review!