Is Summoner tier 2 or 3?

[LordBlades]

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with.

IMO, Summoner fits that definition really well. It does a thing quite well l (combat) and can add some out of combat utility (has some good spells but is very llimited by spells known/spells per day). Yet, it's listed ad tier 2 in most PF tier threads and I'm at a loss why.

Only thong that fits tier 2 seems to be Gate, and comparing it to Dread Necro ( a definite 3.5 tier 3) summoner seems to come out short: Animate Dead is at least on par with Eidolon combat-wise, spell lists are IMO comparable and if you're looking for utility, planar binding beats summon monster.

So:
Why is the summoner tier 2 in PF?
And, if ported to 3.5 with min support (no archetypes or fav class bonuses, no PF races or feats, 3.5 nat attack mechanics, duplicate spells use the 3.5 versions) will it stilll be tier 2?

[Erik Vale]

Summons are much better than animate dead, especially since that can be gained through items, where as lots of minute per level highest level summons possible up to gate gives more utility from summons than any other class can dream of, let alone get without leadership.

A good way to tell Summoners are tier 2. Synthesist Summoners can out fight most melee classes, scrounging to high tier three through pure beatstick awesome sauce... They then get all the utility of summons, more skills, and arcane magic. That bumps them into tier 2. Lower tier two though, probably not high tier 2 though.

It's noted that this is one of the worse options due to shooting yourself in the action economy, regardless of how awesome your's already is, given that properly handled Eidelons can take fighters etc of the summoners level with minimal direct aid from the summoner given the boosts gained from evolutions alongside normal levels... If you're willing to sink the money into it.

Edit:
If 3.5 I still posit yes. Were it not for the more restricted spell-casting I'd compare it favourably to a druid, however at high levels it's summons would push it into tier 1.

[avr]

Summoners get planar binding and summon monster, that's a false dichotomy you've got there. Haste isn't the only spell they get early; maze, create demiplane and greater teleport wouldn't normally even be on a 6 level spell list. They get a number of the killer app spells like invisibility, true seeing, the wall spells, simulacrum.

NB reverting their spells to 3.5 lets them get on the free money by casting wall of iron/stone bandwagon and nets them the 3.5 versions of alter self, simulacrum and glitterdust. Still tier 2 IMO; can break the game in a limited number of ways.

[LordBlades]

Summons are much better than animate dead, especially since that can be gained through items, where as lots of minute per level highest level summons possible up to gate gives more utility from summons than any other class can dream of, let alone get without leadership.

A good way to tell Summoners are tier 2. Synthesist Summoners can out fight most melee classes, scrounging to high tier three through pure beatstick awesome sauce... They then get all the utility of summons, more skills, and arcane magic. That bumps them into tier 2. Lower tier two though, probably not high tier 2 though.

It's noted that this is one of the worse options due to shooting yourself in the action economy, regardless of how awesome your's already is, given that properly handled Eidelons can take fighters etc of the summoners level with minimal direct aid from the summoner given the boosts gained from evolutions alongside normal levels... If you're willing to sink the money into it.

Not for pure beatsticking they're not. A horde of undead (you can get a tpn of HD with a Dread Necro) that's always around will almost certainly better than a single (or a couple) beatsticks you need to summon.

And even if Synesthesist summoners outfight everyting and everyone, being good at 1 thing is tier 3. Tier 2 is the ability to be good at anything, which I don't see in the Summoner.

[Divayth Fyr]

Not for pure beatsticking they're not. A horde of undead (you can get a tpn of HD with a Dread Necro) that's always around will almost certainly better than a single (or a couple) beatsticks you need to summon.
A horde of low hd undead will get obliterated easily via aoes, while you won't be getting a horde of high hd undead - Dread necro or not.


Tier 2 is the ability to be good at anything, which I don't see in the Summoner.
What is he lacking in your opinion? He has summons, buffs, some utility and battlefield control, the option to go full-on into meele. By himself a Summoner won't do a good blaster, but that's usually not a problem.

[Erik Vale]

Not for pure beatsticking they're not. A horde of undead (you can get a tpn of HD with a Dread Necro) that's always around will almost certainly better than a single (or a couple) beatsticks you need to summon.

And even if Synesthesist summoners outfight everyting and everyone, being good at 1 thing is tier 3. Tier 2 is the ability to be good at anything, which I don't see in the Summoner.

1: I'm going to say you're wrong. Flight, Burrow, Humanlike-Hands+Outsider Type. After a certain amount of level gap masses just don't cut it any more.

2: No, Tier 1 is good at anything. Synthesist Summoner reaches top 3 on fighting alone, it overtakes by:
-Minute/Level utility summons. At high levels the utility of summons is huge... Horrendously Huge.
-Knowledge of utility spells.
-Ability to grab all Arcane spells up to 6th level through expenditure of wealth [Ioun Stones, Pages of Spell Knowledge, Rings], with the ability to break WBL at level 1, not that level 1 has WBL [Spell that technically destroys armour and makes you put on armor + False Focus + Divine Focus costing more than Armor + 1st level spell slots. May need Samarsan though as I don't see it on summoners list, not that I remember the spells name...]


Edit:

Tiers listing:
Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes.

The summoner can be a beat stick, it can do anything the rogue can better through summons, it can blast ok + summons, it can be the horde through summons, through WBL it can do most things wizards can do up until 7th level slots. It can even be a healbot and not just through summons. It can even do all this at the same time.

It's just tier ones do it better.

If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes.

Summoners don't have 10 nukes... They have maybe 5, which puts them above tier 3. And what's better, they have a bunch of buddies that have 5 nukes each, they're called minute/level 9th level summons. Called 13/14th level clerics with racial abilities in place of class features.

[LordBlades]

A horde of low hd undead will get obliterated easily via aoes, while you won't be getting a horde of high hd undead - Dread necro or not.


What is he lacking in your opinion? He has summons, buffs, some utility and battlefield control, the option to go full-on into meele. By himself a Summoner won't do a good blaster, but that's usually not a problem.

Assuming DM doesn't go out of the way (intentionally or simply by campaign theme) to deny you undead you will be walking around with s3veral CR appropriate beatsticks (ginants, hydras, dragons etc.).

As for what's summoner lacking? Most non combat stuff (it has some utility but not much).You can make a tier 2 build focused on anything (by my understanding a tier 2 class can do anything but not in a single build). How would ypu make a stealth or social (or anything non-combat) focused Summoner?

Take for example JaronK's example situations in the original tier thread:
Situation 1: A Black Dragon has been plaguing an area, and he lives in a trap filled cave. Deal with him.

Situation 2: You have been tasked by a nearby country with making contact with the leader of the underground slave resistance of an evil tyranical city state, and get him to trust you.

Situation 3: A huge army of Orcs is approaching the city, and should be here in a week or so. Help the city prepare for war.

I can see summoner doing quite well in 1, moderately well in 3 (repeated Wall of Stone) but I really don't see him able to do much about 2 (apart from Planar Binding something with Tier 1 casting).

[Divayth Fyr]

How would ypu make a stealth or social (or anything non-combat) focused Summoner?
Does an invisible, flying, non-detectable caster under a sequester that can use Ethereal Jaunt count as a stealth one? Direct social encounters are more of an issue, that is true.

Other non-combat things would include what? You got teleportation, flying, finding creatures, long distance comunication, water breathing, plane shifting and planar adaptation.


Take for example JaronK's example situations in the original tier thread:
(...)
Situation 2: You have been tasked by a nearby country with making contact with the leader of the underground slave resistance of an evil tyranical city state, and get him to trust you.
(...)
I can see summoner doing quite well in 1, moderately well in 3 (repeated Wall of Stone) but I really don't see him able to do much about 2 (apart from Planar Binding something with Tier 1 casting).
JaronK's own description of solving situation 2 (for various tiers) mentions divinations, Alter Self, Charm, Locate Creature. Alter Self is on the Summoner list, as is Locate Creature and Discern Location. Detect/Seek thoughts also won't hurt, while Sympathy could have some use.

[LordBlades]

Fair points, thank you :) I also had no idea how improved PF Summon Monster list is :)

[Yanisa]

Direct social encounters are more of an issue, that is true.

Well a summoner often have a decent to high charisma, so diplomacy is easy to get high. There is a small issue of not having a lot of skill points, but between the summoner and the eidolon you can cover a couple of basic. You can even make the eidolon the diplomat, for the low cost of one evolution point it gets +8 on any skill check and unlike the summoner diplomacy can be a class skill for a eidolon. That would cancel out the far lower charisma on the eidolon.

In general a summoner + eidolon has 6 skill points per level (2 summoner + int, 8 eidolon -2 from int), although the eidolon looses a couple of levels on the way. Coupled with the fact that eidolon has "pick 4 skills to be class skills" and it is a decent skill monkey duo. Especially if you are willing to send evolution points on it, that +8 to any skill for 1 evolution is great.

[Gnaeus]

Simple answer. It isn't. Or if it is, so are the other fixed list casters.

Better answer. The functional difference between high tier 3s and low tier 2s is pretty minimal. We could argue all day (and we have) between what is equivalent optimization level between a summoner or a dread necro or a beguiler or an oracle, but in practice all 4 could play in the same group without anyone really being much better than anyone else, so call it what you want.

[Ssalarn]

Tier 2, pushing Tier 1 territory at higher and low levels thanks to his ability to adapt and/or bring in subordinates who can fill any gap in his capabilities.

The PF summon monster list is solid, and the Summoned has numerous high level (all the way up to 9) spells scattered throughout his spell list, many of which are available to him at levels where no other class is able to cast them. 3+CHA castings of Gate at the upper end means he effectively has more 9th level spells than most full-casters.

Intelligent use of the Evolution Surge spells can make him a skilled character who always has the right solution on hand for mundane problems.

[Vortenger]

Please read Neonchameleons's guides to see how summoner compares pretty damn well straight up against a sorcerer.

Guide to Summoner (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VAc_eoV_uwQoRjxgaofIGyPcdwLgaCzVJbjynN3ONao/edit?pli=1#) - Guide to Summons (https://docs.google.com/document/d/16dZ5SBQMS1Yi6531tXOkKE_rmXEwn4VFacOEQKiHA5E/edit?pli=1) - Guide to Alternate Eidolon (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oRoaIVTmDH7k6tVbTdXzuw-dYTPkdRo57NYB5Wv7vJo/edit?pli=1#heading=h.x88xphneinn7).

You are the face, the rogue, the beatstick, and a damn good caster besides. This cannot be tier 3.

edit: Why post this on here and MinMax? A lot of us post there too. You are likely to get a lot of the same replies.

[Orsyn]

Well a summoner often have a decent to high charisma, so diplomacy is easy to get high. There is a small issue of not having a lot of skill points, but between the summoner and the eidolon you can cover a couple of basic. You can even make the eidolon the diplomat, for the low cost of one evolution point it gets +8 on any skill check and unlike the summoner diplomacy can be a class skill for a eidolon. That would cancel out the far lower charisma on the eidolon

There are plenty of traits that allow you to get diplomacy as a class skill, and the aspect class ability would allow the summoner to take the skilled evolution at level 10 by spending points from the eidolon's pool. If you're a synthesist, that level 10 becomes level 1, and you can increase available skill points by virtue of not really needing physical scores.

[Yanisa]

There are plenty of traits that allow you to get diplomacy as a class skill, and the aspect class ability would allow the summoner to take the skilled evolution at level 10 by spending points from the eidolon's pool. If you're a synthesist, that level 10 becomes level 1, and you can increase available skill points by virtue of not really needing physical scores.

Evolution Surge can make it level 4 for a temporary boost too. Yeah summoner/eidolon have the skill monkey thing in their pocket.

[Madwand99]

For anyone interested in the same thread on min/max:

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=13676.msg236063#msg236063

All my replies on the topic are in there, I don't see any need to repeat myself.