The summoner class has been an interest sense early beta with mention of a possible boss dropping pheromones. While this never happened the idea still remains with in trinkets and mutation currently in the game. The class in its current state has to be accompanied by another like archery or assassin. But what if that where to change? Here is the way I would go about making the Summoner a full stand alone class.
Bosses: The idea of having the ant queen being able to drop a pheromone that would summon ants to your aid was a great idea. But how could we innovate it to make it progress with the player? By making each nest have its own queen. Each queen would drop a 3rd of a trinket that would summon the corresponding ants. Red ant queen would drop a pheromone that would summon red ants and so forth. Once upgraded by combining it with another ant queen trinket, would increase the quantity and the type. Instead of having a mutation to upgrade the class, you would have to fight the queen in each tier area. The bosses would also drop other materials for the class as well. The boss fight would be more unique than the others, with the queen having much less health than other bosses. But the reason is your not going to be fighting her most of the fight, your fighting her for summoning powers, so it’s only fair to have her be a summoning boss. She will leap on to a edge and summon a wave of ants. After you clear the wave she’ll come back down and resume fighting you. The waves would get progressively harder as her health lowers.
Equipment: The weapon that would be for this class would be a staff or wand. Instead of doing damage your self, you would act like a wasp drone for your summons. Normal being able to buff your summons. Charging it up would give you a medium range type attack that does damage (like the fire staff). The mutation that would go with the class would only increase the duration your summons stay. Mastery would give you maybe a more tank like ant. The armor would be light sense your not mainly fighting the front lines, you would only get a piece from each boss. Meaning you wouldn’t be able to complete the set until after the fire ant boss is defeated. The set bonus would increase your effectiveness with the summoners staff.
Stats: The main things about this set is the randomness of the types of ants, their duration, and the quantity. The draw to this class is the randomness. As you progress your ant types would be random in the type (as in soldier or regular) and the variant (Red, Black, or fire) you could get a bunch of fire soldiers ants, or a bunch of red normal ants. The way to mitigate these chances is the apex perk on the the boss fire ant staff, giving a higher chance to summon a fire ant or a chance for a queen to randomly be summoned.
Conclusion: I feel like this would fully fulfill the summoners class without it becoming game breaking. There are probably some tweaks that would have to be made but I hope a system like this would come into Grounded to give light to a new class for players to enjoy. As always, thank you for your time.
