A conjuror is 99.9% dps, with a few buffs. Call of the Hero when someone in zone needs a summon. Shards for mana boost. Otherwise, your role is to kill stuff. In raids it's going to depend on situation... you may be called on to cure arcane detrimentals or dispel a mob's beneficial spells. Or you might be asked to use your pet to pull mobs. But most of the time it's DPS all the way.
Im not a raid conjy, but I am a group conjy, so lemme give this a try For the most part every mages purpose is to dps. thats just a given, in fact you can surmise that everything other than tanks and healers should be dpsing at a decent rate. As far as how the conjy stacks up against the other mages, allow me to go into detail. Mages: main goals of a mage class are DPS, secondary roles as utility. Warlock: Lots of encounter dps, only a few buffs to boost dps. Wizzy: Lots of single target/point blank dps, only a few buffs to boost dps. Illy: DPS through fast casting spells, abuses procs, lots of scout/mage damage buffs, small amount of mana recharge utility. Coercer: Less DPS, more utility, through hate mods, few damage boosts, healer and tank buffers mostly. mana battery. Necromancer: Moderate to High DPS, low to medium utility. Necromancers do most of the same things conjies do, but bring heals, revives, plenty of self and pet lifetaps, and Lifeburn. Necros are more dps than utility imo, though many would argue having a rez gives them plenty of utility, as well as transfering life to allies, or just casting spells to bring small group heals. Conjuror: Moderate DPS, Moderate utility. Conjurors bring a decent mix of single target and encounter dps to the fray, with lots of burst damage through a few key spells. They tend to bridge the gap between sorcerers (warlock, wizzy) and Enchanters (illy, coercer) by bringing lots of damage, as well as plenty of buffs. Useful buffs include runes of geomancy (group stoneskin procs) stoneskins (groupwide 3 hit stoneskins with AA) elemental barrier[frowned upon] (aoe prevention and some other stuff) Teamwork (various stat buffs), fires from within (pet buff gives group (raid?) max hp and potency), gives mana through mana shards(raidwide), Player teleport to location, etc. Im sure some would disagree with this assessment, but this is how I have set my conjy up. The conjy can parse right up there with any of the other casters, while also bringing a good amount of group utility. Naturally in a raid a conjy doesnt really need to bring any group utility since there are dedicated classes to it (certain healers, enchanters, bards, etc) but in a group setting its nice to bring a large amount of flexibility to a group so you dont always have to bring a coercer for mana, or a dirge for stoneskins, etc. Really in my eyes the conjy is the perfect blend of dps and utility. I tried to keep the assessments of other casters to a point, since you were only asking for conjy's role, but i feel that it helps to understand all the mage class roles in order to know where you fit in Naturally this is just my opinion, but if anyone thinks I missed the mark on any of the classes feel free to correct me
Conjurors are a good starter class, since your taking strong pets with you wherever you go, and you have dedicated heal spells for them. Necromancers would solo better, just because they can cast damaging spells and through AAs have that heal their pet, and their pets lifetap the enemy on their own as well. The only thing is they require a little more thought in groups / raids than what you would think, alot of it coming down to keeping a good leash on your pet
I think that is a fairly balanced view. Which, of course, means that many of the non-summoners on the forums are probably gonna call you bad names or something.
I'm returning to the game after a million years, give or take, so take this with a grain of salt. Three to Four xpac's ago, Conjies were right up there at the top of the DPS parse. Go to Flames,and look at Ishbu or Bigron threads. At the time, if you followed the logic, most raids you could bounce around 1- 5 on each mob parse, and hit 2 or 3 zone wide. A 'just don't suck' assasin could always beat us, and a very well played wizzy could maybe beat us. Things are very different now. I haven't raided current content, so I have no idea where we stand now. But I am confident in saying Conjies are pure and simple a DPS class, with a very small utility element. Utility didn't used to get you a raid invite, and I doubt it does now. Power is handled by chanters. We have some broken AA and pet stat issues. It used to be this was one of the best classes to solo. With Mercs a dime a dozen, any class can solo with impunity. I would honestly say, now more than ever, you have to like the class to play it. You don't have a solo advantage, and you're on par, at best, as a DPS class. If you want to be loved/wanted in raids, either be a very good healer or a chanter.
With same gear and similar skill, a summoner will outparse a wizard/warlock in a raid at the moment while delivering more utility(raidwide buff, mana clickers, pet for pulling, stoneskins, etc etc) Sony is doing a review of classes for GU66, so who knows what will happen.
I assume you do not disagree to the 'Summoner provide more utility part'. As for the dps part, this has been a common understanding from the wizard community through a number of threads recently, including the thread started by Sony for class feedback. You can also see it discussed briefly in the wizard parse thread on flames where also world wide top guilds have seen this. Obviously wizards find this wrong since wizards are profiled as all dps, no/little utility. I do understand that the summoners find this point of view a threat and would rather not have it discussed. If Sony shares the wizards view it is not a good thing for the summoners. What has been asked for is mostly an upgrade to the wizards though, not a nerf to summoners. The request is to bring wizards closer to the assassins since they have the same profile of pure dps.
I'd gladly give up the ability to summon dark hearts and to rez in order to avoid taking a hit to DPS. But maybe, instead, the best answer would be for the design team to apply some critical thought (not trying to imply that they don't already, just that it should be directed toward this subject) and come up with a way to give all mages equal utility (not by having them all do the same things - or at least not to the same degree - but by giving them the ability to do one category of utility well, and two more to a lesser degree). So Enchanters should have the best CC in the game (possibly with one type of enchanter having an edge over the other in one type of encounter and the other type of enchanter having an edge in a different type of encounter). Power generation could become the primary utility of the Sorcerers (since they have access to eldritch forces beyond the ken of other types of mages). Summoners could summon creatures that boost resistance of the group/raid thereby providing an arcane source of protection (not so much against straight damage, but against stuns, fears, etc.), and summon others that bolster the health of the group/raid (but not at the same time, nor enough to replace the need for a priest). Then, allow the other two categories of mages to perform the jobs of their counterparts, but at enough of a disadvantage so that, although they can fill in for that role in a pinch, they would only fill that role if one of the primary type was not available. This would have the benefit of reducing the amount of time it takes to form a group (at least as far as the DPS role goes - except in the case of munchkin groups). As far as sheer DPS goes, make them roughly equivalent, but make it where each class has a type of enemy that they parse better on (for example, necros and conjys could parse 10% better on undead and elemental mobs, respectively, than they would on other types of mobs - Enchanters and Sorcerers could have other types). As for the inevitable objection, "But then there won't really be any reason to pick one class over the other!", that is true. They call that class balance.
...and that is why I dislike class balance. It turns the game into "What spell graphics do you like best?" and takes out the random combinations and occurrences that happen when there are actual differences between Mages (or other classes). I loved playing my Brigand when they were the bastard of the scout group..and my Coercer when they were just plain horrible to play. And the perfect world setup that you mention leaves no place for things like Bards... Give me disparity among the classes within an archetype...it gives more depth to a game by allowing what "class balance" doesn't, true differences in play styles. Instead the game should be balanced DPS vs DPS...and Utility vs Utility...then people can pick what they want to play. Scenario 1: Player A says "My utility class doesn't do the DPS of a DPS class!" Answer: Well...play a DPS class as that is an option! Scenario 2: Player A says "Uhm...why can't I find a utility class to play? All the classes seem to be DPS classes with a tiny bit of utility..." Answer: Sorry...we decided to "balance" the classes and now you don't have an option.
There can be differences. To use an analogy, you go to the store to pick up ice cream, and the options available are chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. All of them (by the same ice cream maker) have the same price. Just because they have the same price doesn't mean that chocolate tastes like vanilla. Likewise, the flavor (class) that you choose (as your main character) should essentially be a personal preference - at least within the same archetype. That doesn't preclude there being a Bard in the group. Bards enhance others' abilities (and to be perfectly honest, the portion of the parse that their abilities increase should be credited to them, not the recipient of the CA). Just because Enchanters should be the best CC doesn't mean that Bards can't have the ability to CC (just make it a shorter duration and affect less targets at once - that way if a group can find an enchanter, a bard has the chance of getting an invite). Basically, there should be no single class that a group or raid can not do without. (For the most part, it is that way now, but try convincing the ones that want to steamroll every zone of that.) tl;dr - We'll just have to agree to disagree on those points.
