Familiars for Eles!

I think it would be a great addition to the game if Eles got familiars. I used to love playing stuff like Baldur's Gate as a Mage, because you would get these cool familiars that would range from fighter pets to caster pets depending on your character.

So I'm suggesting ANet give Eles a No Attribute skill that's like Charm Animal- you just carry it on your bar and you get a familiar. Unlike Charm Animal, you probably shouldn't have to charm an actual animal to get it to work, more like it should be there as long as you carry the skill.

Familiars should be casters and have certain basic skills. Imps in BG used to be great familiars; it could be something like that. Have 3-4 spells on the side to help and always stay around you. Depending on the predominant element you carry, the familiar can have 4 skills of that element. If the majority of your spells belong to fire, for example, your familiar can carry stuff like Flare, Immolate, Meteor, and maybe Mind Burn. These should be at lower level than a henchie or an actual Ele, of course. Familiars should gain experience like pets and get the better spells as they reach higher level. PvP familiars should obviously be fully developed.

Anyways, I miss my crazy imp from BG.

So... in other words, an extra mage henchman at the expense of a skill slot? Perhaps.

I don't know if they had this in Baldur's Gate, but in Neverwinter Nights, you could possess your familiar and take full control of its abilities. This might provide for some interesting gameplay, as your elementalist would effectively be helpless while you get the advantage of any really useful familiar skills. Hell, maybe you could use it to pull or something.

Could be interesting.

This could be useful for point blank and touch spells, without getting your Ele in harms way!

Or launching bigger spells like Meteor Shower unexpectedly...

Well, I was thinking more of a stay back and dish out some Flares type of thing. Like obviously it has to be weaker than a Mage Hench, otherwise you'd end up fighting parties of 8 Eles with 8 familiars.

Speaking of BG/NWN, you remember that spell Simulcurum or whatever it was? Where the mages summon a copy of themselves and it is at up to 60% their stats and has like the same skills. It could work in a similar way.

What I am saying is that it could be made useful and balanced. Like it could be made weaker than regular pets to compensate for it using spells, and the spells can then be of a weaker level. Or it could be as simple as made into a Conjure Spell. Like Conjure Fire Imp, Conjure Frost Imp... Many options... But it will be cool for Eles to get some aid on the side in the form of a pet-like spellcasting thingie.

Or perhaps a spell like D&D's Summon Monster {I-IX}, maybe one in each elemental line that scales based on points in the attribute. Make it work sort of like the new necro death elite, ie, only summon one at a time, but it's pretty powerful.

So, you Summon Fire Elemental, perhaps, and you get a golem-looking thingie that works on the minion AI, only it's a spellcaster. For balance, it would either need health degen over time, or maybe just not a lot of hit points/armor (casters are squishy!) Give them the rank in the attribute that you put in, and I'd say if you have at least 12 in the linked attribute, they get an elite spell from that line, otherwise just 4 regular damage dealers.

I kind of like how EQ's Magician pet item is set up maybe something simliar to that but changed to be more GW ish in a sense?

Well ...... I am against the idea of making such a major change in an existing profession, but it sounds like it's worth considering for a new profession in future chapters.

Ranger pets only have a basic attack, and you ave to waste your skills by giving them more attacks from beast mastery, so i think having what is basically an extra spell caster for one skill slot taken is a bit unfair / unbalanced.

Baaah, Familiars are too mono... I like my Warlock more. B)

What I wanna see is ranged pets like a spitting cobra or something.
/signed, but only if I get my spitting cobra

I like it, but i think they should only be at a lvl were you get 100 att. points to max ONE element, (somewhere around lvl 13 or 14..) to make it even and a base of 28...60 armor and like 110...230 health or something. Would these be summonable at like Xfire magic you make a lvl 2...13 elemental who has 1...4 skills (16 fire = lvl 17 elemental who has 5 skills and 14 or 15 fire magic (w/e lvl 17 grants in att.)

Ok so my Skill for it:

Fire Elemental Summon: 3s, 20e, 60r
Summon a lvl 2...13 fire elemental who has a base armor of 14...50 and 110...254 base health with 40 energy and 4 energy regeneration. This elemental is granted 1...4 skills from the fire magic line (no elites) from your skill bar. You may only have one elemental on the field at one time.

(3 second cast = same as necro, 20 energy = inbetween necros summons and all numbers are factors of 12)

ps. I like it
/signed

How about if to summon the familiar you use the skill for it and it would have a long (5 minute?) recharge. If the familiar dies you have to recast the skill to get it back. The skill would have a 10 second cast time.

Or maybe make it a one or two time use.

if you made it a 5 min recast ppl would just use glyph or renewal. no real point...

Familiars would be fun to have. Necros would probably be considered as they are magic casters themselves.

/signed

But not for the existing "Core" professions. It would be more easily balanced if it were incorporated into a future profession.

Cool idea!

Give the ele some love...right now he is useless.

(the summontype idea a few posts up is pretty good...but that armor might be a big high...because it is higher than the casting ele's armor.)

I think this kind of robs Necromancer, Ranger, and Ritualist of their classes speicality. Necros Death line is full of undead summoning, Ranger has permenant pets, and Ritualist is about to add another element of summoning into the game, I don't realy see the justification for giving elementist an "elemental pet or minion", it kind of branches out of elementist skill line and into another other classes, for something that elementist can technically get by combining with other classes.

Although another more diverse summoning/familiar job might be a good addition at some point, I think we have enough of them already, we have more Summon/Familiar jobs in the game then melee after this next expansion.

Make it an elite so you can't.

I have an idea. How about if you make a chain cast of these things? You would have 3 skills. We will call them F1, F2, and F3. If you have F1 on your bar you will summon a weak familiar. If you have F1 and F2 then you have to cast F1 to get a familiar then cast F2 which will replace the current Familiar with a stronger one. Then the same with F3 after F2. But you have to do it in order like an Assassin chain attack. In order to get a strong summon you will have to sacrifice 3 skill slots but it would/could be worth it if you get them casted.

Elementals works, too. I'd love to see a Familiar/Elemental/Whathaveyou in the Ele line of skills because I think this will give a nice fresh feeling of the class. I see a lot of people complaining about Eles, and I think an elite summon of some sorts would be a cool addition. Again, by no means am I suggesting something like a lvl 20 8 skills summon. It can be balanced. It could cost 25 energy, have 3-5 cast, cause Exhaustion, whatever... GoGo Fire Elementals!!! I mean Ice Imp Familiars...