Want to switch to a ranged class: FM or Summ?

[Bad Messiah]

Backstory: after making the decision to main my Sin and levelling her up to 50 and doing some endgame content, I realized that I need to switch to a ranged class. Despite enjoying Sin's mechanics, I simply can't stand the amount of effort I need to pull for playing in melee, and timing escapes when I can occasionally lag/FPS drop is a pain.

I have a 45 Force Master and a 25 Summoner. Didn't like Warlock (also out of character slots and don't want to spend money/Gold buying another one).

 

My question is: what are the differences between FM and Summ?

 

After 45 levels as Force Master I have an idea about the class, but I know nothing about Summ. Since I don't really want to waste time levelling my Summ for another 25 levels just to find she sucks and I like my FM better, I want to know something about Summs before making my choice. Please note that I really enjoy FM but I find her pretty intensive to play properly.

 

What I learned about FMs is that they seems simple but they really aren't: they have not-so-easy combos to perform and you need to keep track of a lot of things like the stance where you are in, number of flame and frost orbs, cooldowns of one additional bar (since ZXCV holds double the amount of skills of other classes). Are Summs a little easier and more relaxing than FMs? How their damage is delivered? They have combos, and if yes how hard are to perform? I noticed that with my FM I can Q/E out of trouble, but Summs seems to lack those skills, how they are supposed to deal with red AoEs and stuff?

 

Another thing about Summs is the cat. I don't really know what the cat does and how I am supposed to manage it. I really dislike pet management in MMOs: in WoW Hunters and Warlocks have a pet that is really self-dependant, he always place himself behind the boss avoiding frontal cones/cleaves and takes 90% reduced damage from AoEs. Basically, in WoW your pet can never die and requires little management. How is this compared to BnS? Does Summ's cat requires more management? He can actually die from a boss if I am careless about him?

 

TL;DR: melee sucks, want to play ranged, need to decide between FM and Summ and I am asking about pros and cons of both classes.

[BattleKat]

Well i have a high lvl Summ, and we are really strong and PVE also at PVP, me and my friend were able to duo the Widow sisters or w/e is their name in the 24 man map using really bad gear, low lvl soulshields and underlvl weapon, i left my cat tanking one while we killed the other one.

 

I am currently lvling a FM and i find both class's equal strong and very easy to play, i am gonna be honest, i had way more fun playing my BM and my Destroyer than i am having with FM and Summoner, but, the ranged class's make everything easier at PVE, you dont need to be a good player to kill easy at PVE with those,

 

At PVP i can tell you that FM can pretty much wipe the cat and the summoner in no time, while is kinda harder to win against melee class's, but as a Summ you can beat melee class's very easily, well...good destroyers can kill you and your cat at the same time.

 

Hope that help...i cant say one is better than the other, FM probably have higher DPS and less utility at PVE, while Summ have a good DPS and very nice utility since you can tank, heal, CC, DPS, air juggles, pretty much everything...

 

 

[JumpingBean]

Summoner;

pros: 2v1, heal, invisibility , high dps

cons: everyone hates you. 

 

FM;

pros: high dps, lots of crowed control.

cons: not summoner. 

[Bad Messiah]

7 minutes ago, BattleKat said:

I am currently lvling a FM and i find both class's equal strong and very easy to play, i am gonna be honest, i had way more fun playing my BM and my Destroyer than i am having with FM and Summoner, but, the ranged class's make everything easier at PVE, you dont need to be a good player to kill easy at PVE with those

Hope that help...i cant say one is better than the other, FM probably have higher DPS and less utility at PVE, while Summ have a good DPS and very nice utility since you can tank, heal, CC, DPS, air juggles, pretty much everything...

Well, as I said I really enjoy playing my Assassin, the problem that I can't play a melee. Doing something like GHS or BW or even a boss in 6-men dungeon is too much risky: as a melee you need to stay 100% focussed on dodging every AoE around the bosses and move with them if the move or get kited, but if this game suddenly lags or drops FPS and you miss a Q/E you are screwed. The problem I have is purely technic, I am not looking for something easier to play than an Assassin, I am switching to a ranged class because it is the only way I can play this game, honestly.

[BattleKat]

8 minutes ago, Bad Messiah said:

Well, as I said I really enjoy playing my Assassin, the problem that I can't play a melee. Doing something like GHS or BW or even a boss in 6-men dungeon is too much risky: as a melee you need to stay 100% focussed on dodging every AoE around the bosses and move with them if the move or get kited, but if this game suddenly lags or drops FPS and you miss a Q/E you are screwed. The problem I have is purely technic, I am not looking for something easier to play than an Assassin, I am switching to a ranged class because it is the only way I can play this game, honestly.

Well then you are gonna enjoy Summoner, since they can make many mistakes and still be fine, i mean, you can even win at PVP with out your cat, one time one Blade Master just like, insta killed my cat but then the rest of the fight he couldnt reach me because of the root, slows and inv.

 

I am from Venezuela and i have lag with the server, but i am using a VPN called PingZapper, and since i am using it i have no lag at all, no more delays betwen skills and i can finally use my Melee class's normally (i wasnt able to use my BM before because of the lag...) you should try it, you can use it for free for at least 30 mins before it reset, then you can open it again and play other 30 mins, is annoying but at least you can play PVP with it and not long instances.

[Yamyatos]

I dont main either of those, but i got both at 45+ and know what their role is from playing the game. Keep in mind that all i'm saying is from a pve perspective and not about pvp.

 

FM's are a top dps class, fighting over #1 with assassin (while i believe assassins are, and at least will be #1 in the future). They are also wanted in groups for their immensely useful defensive group protection (freeze on hit) which is usefull especially for things like the scorpion queen and similar attacks (where you would otherwise need about 6 iframes^^).

Other than that.. they are not thaat demanding to play. I mean.. i dont really get why you said that FM's are "hard" to play if you played an assassin before. I'd dare to say that meele classes are not only harder but also more complex to play. Well, of course, if you only played the perma stealth build and basically the only thing you did was keeping stealth up and spamming rmb+f then that's not true. (I get that you want to switch because of fps/ping tho)

There's more to it, but basically as an fm you want to burn the oponent and then spamm your fire skills for tons of damage.

 

Summoners are also good dps. They have a few dot abilities that u'll use and they got the sunflower for burst (which even with basic lvl 45 profane equip does about 5-6k crit aoe in a line). There is.. not that much more to it. 

In groups you got a decent heal for the meeles and you can also save ur party from projectiles and one hit. Your cat can tank which is really really great for soloing stuff (and mobbing) but mostly not wanted in groups if there is a tank. 

A tiny bit off topic but what i really find fun about summoners if when they are dead (well this sounds a bit weird xD). Their cat can guard them and basically iframe them until either they revived or the cat died, the cat can help revive them (effectively making summoners have 1/2 time to wait) and when the summoner is dead completely the cat can sacrifice itself to revive its master - all of which i find pretty neat mechanics to be honest. Generally i have to say that i dont really like the gameplay, it feels like a 3 button class.

 

Keep in mind tho that i dont main any of these two classes and probably dont even have the perfect build or any in depth insight in the classes, if there is any :P (It's a joke ok? Dont kill me fm's and sum's pls D:)

 

The big advantage of ranged classes is that they basically can do terrors, blackwyrm and soulstone plains for free compared to meeles. It's possible with meeles.. but it's waay harder while ranged can just stand outside of the range of most attacks and press buttons to do basically 100% uptime of damage, guaranteeing them loot with decent gear where as meeles have to work their asses off to get something in comparision. But i still must say that i enjoy the meele gameplay way more. I will gear up one of my ranged twinks since it's so much more easy to do some of the open world stuff, but meeles are what i play this game for. They just offer a way more active gameplay. 

 

If you dont enjoy warlock, i'd go for summoners since it will be the most easy to get loot on most open world events. Summoners are not far behind that tho.. so you should just pick based on gameplay - for which i'd recomment watching a dungeon run of both classes on youtube and think about whether or not you believe you would enjoy doing this sort of gameplay for hours a day.

[Fuz]

1 hour ago, Bad Messiah said:

Backstory: after making the decision to main my Sin and levelling her up to 50 and doing some endgame content, I realized that I need to switch to a ranged class.

*SIGH*

[Bad Messiah]

31 minutes ago, Yamyatos said:

y, it feel

Eh, you aren't the only one to *sigh*, since I enjoy playing my Assassin. But in the actual state of the game it is a suicide.