Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I was just wondering why it is that all elementals are not created equal for balance purposes?

Granted, they seem pretty close... but why ever summon anything other than a fire elemental? It kills trolls, and its great for both undead and enemies in the cloudpeaks. It also happens to scale decently well with buffs, and has the best stats as far as I can tell.

NOTE: I know there are better summons than the summon creature line (IE Undead, and Gate summons), but this is specifically about the elementals from the summon creature line in particular. Would it be too op to have them be a little more specialized, or otherwise identical in terms of stats? Just curious!


#1stworldserverproblems.

Elementals also have skills they use sometimes. Water for example will try to drown a target. best they arent equal and you have variety in my opinion.

I'd argue that equal stats would increase variety. A simple example is how everyone is using those angelic summons because of their clear superiority to other summons.

That difference in power exists in the lore yes. But when things are the mechanically 'best' way, they are often the way most followed. Which makes those Devas a lot less interesting. It's gotten to the point where I feel silly trying to be impressed that someone has angelic companions, when 1/2 my party has them.

Bringing all the summons closer in line with each other would most likely have people make more decisions that leads to variety.

After all, no one wants to feel 'gimped'.

PaulImposteur wrote:After all, no one wants to feel 'gimped'.

Don't be so sure. If you want to stand out, then the best way to do it is go for something that is considered to be 'gimped' because no one else appears to use it.

For example, who cares of some guy with a scimitar if he is standing next to guy with a mere club.

Sun Wukong wrote:

PaulImposteur wrote:After all, no one wants to feel 'gimped'.

Don't be so sure. If you want to stand out, then the best way to do it is go for something that is considered to be 'gimped' because no one else appears to use it.

For example, who cares of some guy with a scimitar if he is standing next to guy with a mere club.

I see your point, but Paul is right too. As far as summons using special abilities... I use elementals non-stop, and I don't recall ever seeing my elder elementals use special abilities. I have however seen my elder water elemental get absolutely stomped into the mud by a mummy summon from another player. Now, I'm not worried about pvp anyway, but I think that pretty clearly demonstrates the difference in power. Undead aside though, I'm only asking that the elementals be more or less equal. So far I have found 0 need to use anything but my elder fire elemental. Nevermind the countless dire animal summons that I don't see any point in using.

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CleverUsername123 wrote:Is Fire really that much better? Wow, so I've been making a bad choice taking my Earth Elemental named George and buffing it up? Huh.
Make George great again!

Well, the earth elemental has like 3-4 less AC, and in my experience gets clobbered a lot quicker than the fire. I've used earth and fire against hill giants and the fire does better.

Not to mention trolls and yetis are weak to fire, along with undead I think.

I feel like water elementals having drown seems fair... Though I haven't seen my own use it.

I feel like earth elementals should maybe get a bit of DR?

And I think air elementals have improved evasion, so that's something. Maybe some minor concealment?

I have had water elementals sacrifice their HP to drown enemies (living ones of course) and
The frost elemental has used its AOE knockdown skill many times (including knocking itselfs over for some reason)

Certain elementals are stronger yes but it is always about picking "the strongest summon" when you RP and travel with a group why the hells do you need the "ultimate badass summon" anyway when someone else will come along and stomp everything first.

As someone who has played both druid and Thaum/necromancer i can honestly say i have more fun with variety than "This is the best summon i should always use this"

There is no reason to make them all the same.

It's not about having the best summon. If I wanted that I would use Gate and/or undead and be a conjurer. The point I'm trying to make IS about variety. If the dire summons and elementals were more or less equal then you would have no reason to pick a single one, and thus would have all the more reason to switch it up. More importantly, you could switch it up without being penalized. That's my point.

Why would I ever pick a weaker summon when soloing? That's like asking to get killed, and lose experience. Due to my short amount of free time every other week I mostly play solo. Please don't make this about something it is not. I RP as much as anyone else whenever I'm able. This is about balance, and its just a request. If the devs or QC don't feel like doing this then I'll live.

Re: abilities.

Keep in mind the A.I metagames, and that might affect whether said abilities end up being used. If there's no/very low chance, it likely won't get used.

Babuguuscooties, could you summon one of each elementals and tell us their ability scores, unbuffed AC, and the feats they have?

well there so many others the devel is working on so they busy to do stuff that is i most say elemental have they owe power and weakness tha tis the way of the law of them

Sun Wukong wrote:Babuguuscooties, could you summon one of each elementals and tell us their ability scores, unbuffed AC, and the feats they have?

Yeah, I'll do that if ya want SW. I know this isn't at the top of the priority list. It's just something I noticed. Maybe the gurus can show me its negligible. I'm open to that, so I'll go get those stats. Because from my experience thus far the fire elemental is supreme in this particular server.

Elder Shadow Elemental
Elder Earth Elemental
Elder Water Elemental
Elder Fire Elemental
Elder Ice Elemental
Elder Air Elemental

Great stuff, add that info to the wiki so that people can find it easily in the future