Familiars for Mage / Shaman classes

I was thinking about our spell slinging classes and got on the thought of familiars. Most other classes have some kind of accessory for them to use in battle or enhance their main attacks. Familiars could be an interesting way for magic based classes to get in on this type of function as well.
The familiar could be an equitable item that works like other equipment for the shaman, or a two part spell for the runemage you cast to summon the familiar. There could be different types of familiars that apply a simple effect, something like…

• Arcane familiar - extends DoT affect

• Frost familiar - picks an aggressive target and applies a slowing effect

• Fire familiar - occasionally applies a burning DoT on an aggressive target

• Life familiar - occasionally removes a bane from the caster, if no banes are active, provides a small amount of healing periodically

• Scribe familiar - (runemage unique) Carries the casters runes so you can cast while moving (drawing runes switches from world space drawing to local space drawing)

• Golem familiar - (shaman unique) Can carry a totem for the shaman, allowing the shaman to move with at least one of their totems always by their side. (or in front of them, doesn’t matter, either or)

Thoughts? Ideas? Emotional outbursts?

7 Likes

I especially love the Scribe and Golem ideas!

Scribe would be wonderful. It would give the more freeeom to move around the battlefield.
Could mess up balancing though (squishy standstill with ppwerfull attacks/agile spell slinger with mad bursts of damage)

I really like this idea. And the devs could just use scaled down wolves and color them depending on the type of familiar.

I would very much like this :smiley:

So I was thinking maybe it could be like a four part ritual spell. And if you got the ground with the spell, the familiar becomes yours, but if you hit someone else, it becomes theirs. As for the spell, I was thinking the runes could be partnership then initiation then opening and then one that determines what kind of familiar it is. And maybe instead of using up reagents, it costs half your max hp and 75 percent of you fail.

Thoughts?

but shaman have a super cool special

Scalled down passive enemies from the world would be cool, but that got me thinking. It would be super rad to bring back some of the old monsters from og Orbus for them. Arcane could be those monsters that popped out of dead sheep (Ovisganger), frost could be the frosted vulpes, fire could be the wyverns from the burning forest, Life could be a red tail, scribe could be an alma sprite, and golem could be the stone kelpie.

The two part spell cast i figured would keep RuneMages from changing familiars mid fight, just like other classes can’t change weapons or loadouts mid fight.

3 Likes

I really really really like this idea.

Would be useful in some situations, but dots are overwritten far too often by either recasting fireball or someone else writing over one of your affliction stacks. My thoughts, however, would be having this familiar spread dots to one additional target every 4 seconds. That would allow affinity mages to deal with groups a little better while not intruding too much on true affliction’s area.

I doubt this would get any traction, but it’s a good idea nonetheless. Perhaps if it applied frost 3 it would be useful (seeing as frost 2 is one of the easiest spells in the game).

If this was in addition to a fireball dot on true affliction talent, I’m sure some people would use it.

Yes, please. Looking at the new classes and comparing them to the old ones, 3 out of the 4 new classes can heal themselves whereas only 2 of the old classes can heal themselves, one of which requires a talent to do so (warrior provoke heal). Bringing this to mage would be super nice, especially since we’re so squishy. If you get caught off guard by a minion in a boss fight, you should be able to kill it if you notice in time. This would extend that time a little. Otherwise, as a mage, if you get hit with something hard, you’re going to die instantly.

Would solve a lot of complaints about new players and spellcasting once they hear about this sort of thing.

I like this a lot actually. Kinda makes it feel like a basic attack that’s nearly always by your side.

Other options could be:

  • Shield familiar - Provides a shield on occasion (8 seconds or so) that absorbs up to 3ish% of the caster’s maximum health (equivalent to the heal tick from the life familiar in my mind, which would be less than a renew tick from musket)
  • Wrist slot familiar - Finally provides something to put in your wrist slot!

All jokes aside, I would genuinely take this sort of thing especially over the level 5 talents on mage, but in some cases even the level 30 talents. Plus, I’ve always wanted different pets, and having a fireball float over my shoulder as a mage or something of the sort would be pretty cool.

1 Like

OMG yes! That’s Even better!

From a mage’s standpoint

  1. Only useful with true affliction, its better than nothing.
  2. No, frost 3 would be better and this would just override it, don’t use it.
  3. Its okay but its not a targeted thing and it could hit something you don’t want it to hit. Imaging boss 2 expert from original Orbus if you accidentally hit an enemy and the pet put a dot on it without your knowledge, it would be horrible.
  4. Don’t get this “Bane” mechanic. But this is literally just an auto-heal. At high shards basically everything will one shot you with projectiles or around 3 shot you from regular attacks. Plus we have a healer for a reason. Pretty useless outside of solo content.
  5. This would be hard for me to wrap my head around but a good idea. A big gripe from many mages is that the runes are bound to the world and not your local play-space. However there are problems with this familiar. Many mages can shoot out spells and teleport, you never use the walking locomotion unless you want to just walk around. Teleporting is faster slightly over walking. You really don’t use walking locomotion in end game content either as teleport is just better for dodging. A lot of the time if you dodge you stop casting. Yes its an improvement to damage after the teleport if you get the cast off. However if you let go of your trigger at any point for most spells you might as well just redraw the entire rune. That one will probably not cast. Overall its cool and if it is used properly you gain damage. I like this one.
1 Like

I am onboard with this idea 100%, I mentioned this idea with Riley at the end of old orbus and he said the idea got brought up but never took off. I really loved your idea of using old orbus mobs for all the different types which I think every type is a good base but could be improved to make everyone useful, but everyone has to keep in mind there will always be a best and worst of everything for they go hand in hand. I would like to see another familiar on top of those great ideas.

Lighting familiar- increases movement speed for all players within a radius.
This would just be good for running around in overworld for those who complain about mount speeds or movement speed in general.

Shield familiar- reduces incoming damage and even hold aggro for a short period until it dies.
This would just be useful as cloth users are squishy and would give a couple more seconds of attacking without being attacked.

Super Familiar- does everything, has all familiars abilities. To cast you must first use a four part 3D spell, have (X) number of reagents for total amount of familiars (so with the two I mentioned and 6 of pryos that would make 8 reagents), and then also have your super charged up. Which of course that’s a op familiar but just to be able to get it to cast would be borderline impossible yet possible enough to make it worth trying for. I would say make it only available in PvE and not PvP but yes use all regular familiars in PvP. This could also be something that could take the efforts of two players to cast simultaneously in order to bring the beast alive.

Also as far as the spell type a two part or four part i think there should be both. Some of the less useful would be a two part and the harder a four part. As far as cost just keep it simple use a reagent, as of now the drop rates for stuff including those are ridiculous and as far as I’ve seen they don’t plan on reducing that. So increasing the amount of things that take those will add to the demand and reduce the supply therefore making them more rare and less abundant as time goes on and people use their stock.

First of all, love this idea. This would be great since the new map is so big and the only player house is in the corner

Second, this might even be good as a ninth class. It could be like a clone of the rune mage, but instead of a pink trail, it could be green or something, and they could only summon familiars. They could use a tagging gun to select enemies and their wands could be the ones from old orbus.

Third, I thought of some more possible types:
1 - One that runs to the nearest enemy and explodes
2 - A snake-like creature that wraps around the enemie and immobilizes it
3 - Different elemental rings that wrap around your waste and deal damage to enemies that get too close
4 - one that gathers any reagents within a certain radius

Your number 4 is a pet with plunderer ability and as far as making a whole new class we just got 4 new classes so a new one won’t be coming anytime soon which is why they were shooting to just add this to the magical classes.

plunder only picks up items that the mobs drop. I’m talking more about something that gathers alchemical reagents like queens ear, reed flute, etc. and as for the new class, I know it’s not likely, but I’m just kind of brain storming.

another possible idea, instead of being a class it could be like artificing. You would have to combine certain rune stones to make a glass orb, and when you break the orb, a familiar appears and it’s type depends on what runes you use. then everyone would be able to use them, and you wouldn’t have the problem of one class being too op.

another possible type, there could be one that either helps with fishing, or it could fish for you. and maybe one that helps with critter capture too. (that might be too much though)

“Gatherer” does this.

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Literally the gatherer bonus on pets my man.

Touchée mes amis. Thanks for the correction.

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