How good are conjured weapons?

[Conjuredweapons]

I played with firebrand, concelhauts parasitic staff and spirit lance throughout PoE1 and had an absolutely fantastic time doing so. This is my idea for deadfire..... (don't have access to beta so your research will be much appreciated).

 

My idea is to roleplay a 3 man blind PotD run with the three characters that offer firebrand, concelhauts staff and spiritual weapon. Druid, wizard and priest. These will be glass cannons with max strength and high dexterity and intellect.

 

What I have not decided yet is what and if to multi class them with. My initial idea was to multi class them all with soul blade for insane focus gain as well as high damage focus dump. Also I was thinking of rolling lifegiver, conjurer and skaen for subclasses. (Thoughts and comments please)

 

What is the state of conjured weapons in the beta? What is the cast time? Do they still hit like trucks? What is their penetration at? What are they best multi classed and subclassed with?

 

Thoughts and comments please on this idea and build variation.

[Heijoushin]

Haha, I like your username. However, I'm sorry to inform you that conjured weapons are not nearly as good in Deadfire. They take time to summon and are at best only slightly better than an ordinary weapon now. Another problem is that might has been changed to strength (physical attacks only) so spell/melee multi-class characters must split their points.

 

That being said, there is still plenty of time left in the beta and these things may change again.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Heijoushin

[Wormerine]

I just did my runthrough with a high-strenght-low resolve wizard and it worked quite fine. I would like to see cast time on conjured weapons shortened or completely removed. It's not a gamebreaker but it takes time before you can get to actual fighting and unlike other spells you need to spend time attacking to get anything out of them. Just rolling with a weapon seem like a more efficient way right now.

[Boeroer]

There are currently six "types" of summoned weapons in the beta:

- Kalakoth's Minor Blights
- Firebrand
- Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff
- Citzal's Spirit Lance
- Priests' faith attuned weapons
- The Long Pain

Except the Long Pain all summoned weapons got nerfed in terms of base damage. In PoE1 they all had higher base damage than their mundane versions. In Deadfire they have not.

Priests' weapons all get a +60% corrosive lash at lvl 6 which is very good. I guess the lashes will get altered in later stages of the beta to fit to the deity.

Citzal's Spirit Lance's AoE effect now works like Carnage did in PoE: it works with on-hit effects like Swift Flurry or Lightning Strikes and also generates focus. That is more powerful than in PoE1.
The same is true for Minor Blights. They are awesome with Swift Flurry for example.

The rest of the weapons have the same effects than in PoE1 I think.

Combined with the lower base damage it means that Firebrand for example is not better than a usual great sword. It just does burn damage instead of pierce damage.
The weapon that remains nearly the same is the Long Pain I guess.

In PoE1 those weapons didn't scale with your char level (exception: Long Pain). In Deadfire they do. They don't scale with power level, but with char level.

The worst thing is that the summoning process now takes a whopping 6 seconds and they can only be summoned in combat. This means you lose a LOT of combat time before you can actually join the fight, which is a shame. Other self buffs are usually instant or fast casts, but weapons take ages to summon.

All in all summoned weapons feel nerfed. Mostly because of casting time. In the case of Firebrand obviously because it does nothing special except doing burn damage while it costs you one spell use and 6 seconds of casting time. Parasitic Staff "only" drains health but besides that is a normal quarterstaff. Its awesomeness in PoE1 stemmed from the fact that it came exceptional and with high base damage which was very powerful at lvl 1. Later on it wasn't that useful any more. Now it's okish at lvl1 if you want to cast around for 6 secs - and stays okish until the end because it scales. I liked the old approach better.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

- double post, sorry -

 

...stupid phone...

Edited January 1, 2018 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Unsurprisingly, I second the request to make summoned weapons have instant casting time. They're not worth it otherwise.

[Skaddix]

I love it longer casting time and less base damage what a change...talk about a total nerf.

[JerekKruger]

I love it longer casting time and less base damage what a change...talk about a total nerf.

 

On the one hand summoned weapons were very powerful in Pillars and, with multiclassing, would have been even more so, so making them less powerful seems reasonable. On the other hand, in their current form they are (I think) too weak. Even the Priest's Spiritual Weapons, which are pretty powerful, are severely handicapped by their long cast time.

 

I also think Obsidian missed a trick by not making summoned weapons scale with spellcaster power level (instead they scale with character level). Had they done this there would have been a built in weakening of them when wielded by a multiclass character and thus less need to nerf them to deal with this change. Moreover it means that the Conjurer hardly benefits from their increased power level when casting these spells (they gain increased duration to the already plenty long enough duration of them).

[Boeroer]

Exactly. And they knew that (if you followed the answer of Cdiaz in the bug forum).

 

I really don't get why they decided to go with char level. Multiclass chars can make up for power level shortage with a variety of good synergy effects, like Summoned Weapons + Lightning Strikes/Swift Flurry/Flames of Devotion/+PEN from chosen weapon/Sneak Attack and whatnot. Just think about a faith attuned Great Sword of Berath + Lightning Strikes: +attack speed + 60% corrosive lash + 50% shocking lash... ouch!

 

A single class char could then have the advantage of higher power level scaling. Sounds totally fair to me.

 

Then they could rebuff the summoned weapons a bit without having a guilty conscience when looking at multiclass powergamers.

Edited January 2, 2018 by Boeroer

[JerekKruger]

Yep, I was quite surprised by the response to my bug report about it. I really thought it would scale with power level since that just seems the logical thing to do (and also the better thing to do when compared to scaling with character level).

[Skaddix]

 

I love it longer casting time and less base damage what a change...talk about a total nerf.

 

On the one hand summoned weapons were very powerful in Pillars and, with multiclassing, would have been even more so, so making them less powerful seems reasonable. On the other hand, in their current form they are (I think) too weak. Even the Priest's Spiritual Weapons, which are pretty powerful, are severely handicapped by their long cast time.

 

I also think Obsidian missed a trick by not making summoned weapons scale with spellcaster power level (instead they scale with character level). Had they done this there would have been a built in weakening of them when wielded by a multiclass character and thus less need to nerf them to deal with this change. Moreover it means that the Conjurer hardly benefits from their increased power level when casting these spells (they gain increased duration to the already plenty long enough duration of them).

 

 

 

Lol maybe Power Level should cut casting time instead. 5-10% per power level lol? 

 

But ur idea makes sense. 

 

I really wanted to play a magus type but if the casting times stay this long really little reason to pick a primary caster unless you are a Druid. Might as well mix monk with Paladin, Fighter or Barbarian. 

Edited January 2, 2018 by Skaddix

[Wormerine]

What if summoning weapons was a form of “prebuffing” we could do? I really don’t see a reason for such a long cast time. After all it is kinda of a spell you need to spent time using to make it effective. Maybe they become really effective later on, but right now I really don’t see a reason to use summoned weapons over regular weapons.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Combined with the lower base damage it means that Firebrand for example is not better than a usual great sword. It just does burn damage instead of pierce damage.
The weapon that remains nearly the same is the Long Pain I guess.

In PoE1 those weapons didn't scale with your char level (exception: Long Pain). In Deadfire they do. They don't scale with power level, but with char level.

 

 

 

The Long Pain still has the same insane base damage as in PoE1?

Does it stack with Soul Whip if mced with cipher?

[Boeroer]

The base damage might be lower, didn't really compare 1:1 with PoE, but they still work fine and feel pretty powerful.

But duration got nerfed a lot.

 

They work with Soul Whip and also Sneak Attack or Flames of Devotion and so on.

 

They also work with Driving Flight - and of course Swift Flurry, too.

 

But honestly they craziest thing when it comes to summons is Kalakoth's Minor Blights... with a melee weapon in the offhand and either Flames of Devotion or Soul Whip or Swift Flurry or Driving Flight. Also crazy with Blinding Strike/Gouging Strike or Arterial Strike.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Boeroer

[ShakotanSolari]

 

The Long Pain still has the same insane base damage as in PoE1?

 

 

Does it stack with Soul Whip if mced with cipher?

 

Just tested this, yes it is effected by soul whip.

[Raven Darkholme]

Nice, big shame about the nerfed duration, but still sounds like a lot of fun, alternatively Blights and cipher, I just want my cipher to be viable without relying on nerfed powers. :D

[AndreaColombo]

Devoted/Soul Blade is a good melee build

[Raven Darkholme]

Hm, I kinda forgot about fighters, Devoted sounds really cool.

[ShakotanSolari]

Hm, I kinda forgot about fighters, Devoted sounds really cool.

To segue this thread back on topic, Devoted bonus also seems to work with priest's conjured faith weapons so that's pretty cool. I haven't checked with wizard weapons but I assume they would be no different, except maybe Kalakoth's blights as I don't think it has a relative proficiency.

[Boeroer]

Isn't Minor Blights considered to be a wand? I only tested it "on the fly" with the rod's and the scepter's proficiency activated and they get turned off once you summon Minor Blights.

 

Citzal's Spirit Lance works with the pike proficiency and Concelhaut's Staff works with the staff proficiency as expected.

 

There was a bug where an activated modal stayed being active when you summoned a weapon - for example half-sword would stay active although you summoned Spirit Lance. But I think that got fixed with the new patch. Anyway, that was not intended in the first place.

[Katarack21]

What if summoning weapons was a form of “prebuffing” we could do? I really don’t see a reason for such a long cast time. After all it is kinda of a spell you need to spent time using to make it effective. Maybe they become really effective later on, but right now I really don’t see a reason to use summoned weapons over regular weapons.

I had this dream of building a multiclass mage/fighter who exclusively uses summoned weapons and self-buffs, disdaining outside influences like armor and blades as for lesser people.

 

That is basically a total no-go as long as summoned weapons have a six-second cast time. It just totally ineffectualizes summoned weapons.

[JerekKruger]

Nice, big shame about the nerfed duration

 

With good enough Wound generation (perhaps Shattered Pillar for a Long Pain build) and the new customisable AI it should be possible to keep the Long Pain up nearly constantly with very little input from the player.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Nice, big shame about the nerfed duration

 

With good enough Wound generation (perhaps Shattered Pillar for a Long Pain build) and the new customisable AI it should be possible to keep the Long Pain up nearly constantly with very little input from the player.

 

Who doesn't like afk monks. :D

[JerekKruger]

Who doesn't like afk monks. :D

 

Well as a huge micromanager I probably won't use the customisable AI to anywhere near the extent some people will, but definitely for things like this and keeping Swift Strikes up it'll be great.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Who doesn't like afk monks. :D

 

Well as a huge micromanager I probably won't use the customisable AI to anywhere near the extent some people will, but definitely for things like this and keeping Swift Strikes up it'll be great.

 

Yeah the main prob of Monk AI in PoE1 was them not using all wounds frequently, but certain passives per wound made it feel less wasted.

Damagewise you'll never compete with micro monk, but spamming one abbility over and over (hotkey is your friend) is still quite afk.