Totally agree that they need a large buff across the board (Storm Atronoch is great, but I'd like to see a bit more damage there even.)

The other pets are completely 100% useless in PvP.

The biggest problem with the pets right now is that they disappear when you swap weapons. It wasn't like this in early tests but someone who shall remain nameless gave really horrible feedback. They then changed the pets so that they disappear if you change weapons, basically breaking them entirely.

In order to fix them they need to:

1. Increase health and damage on pets

2. Make it so pets persist through weapon swap without being on both bars

If they don't do #2, then #1 needs to be done BY A LOT. If they do #2, then the pets only need slight increases in health and damage.

They disappear if you swap weapons and don't have the summon skills on the other action bar. That's normal behavior for all ongoing abilities though.

At least two people have pointed out that there's no way you're paying a sorcerer nightbalde when cross-class capabilities do not exist.

I played as a Sorcerer, and the Clannfear's dps was abysmal. It was a decent distraction, but that was about it; the way for a sorc to go was Crystal Shard -> Curse -> Mages' Fury.

You are lying. You cannot be a Nightblade-Sorcerer. You pick one class. Nightblade does have a single summon ability though but it works entirely different from the other pets in the game.

The Summon Shade has a duration, which is another way they coudl fix the pets. Reduce the cast cost on Sorcerer summons but make them duration based instead of toggles.

lol I love how you guys are tellin me I am lying wish I could pull up my character to prove it, hey wait next beta weekend look me up and I will prove it to you lol she is level 17

Yes. Which broke them. It wasn't always like that.

This now means you need to effectively give up 2 ability slots per pet. They are SOOOO not worth 2 slots.

There's nothing to prove. You are incorrect. Its not possible in the game. I say that as someone who has tested a lot.

I'm not trying to be mean here. My first post may have been overly harsh. Maybe you're not intentionally lying but are just mistaken.

That's why I'm trying to figure out what may have confused you. Maybe you thought usuing a pet (Summon Shade) or magic abilities (from the Destruction Staff) made you a sorcerer?

You don't get a lot of attention at home, do you?

lol ok let me see if I can spell this out to you completely step by step

1) create a sorceror and start levelling it

2) find heavy armor and put the heavy armor on

3) find a pair of daggers and put them on or swords if you can find them or even a mixture of the two,

4) build up your dual wield skill points and start morphing them

5) build up your summon line of sorceror skills and then morph them

6) build up your heavy armor and then morph it and THEN put on light armor and then build it up and morph it then put on 3 main pieces of heavy armor for the defensive bonuses or 4 if u want more defense and then 4 or 3 pieces of light armor for the magicka bonuses,

TADA I AM playing as a Mage Assassin now eat it the ONLY difference between me and a nightblade as such is I dont have the ultimate skill from the nightblade BUT I DO have all the assassination skills

Case Closed CYA

you said u were playing as a nightbalde assassin so must have been a mistype

aah did I say nightblade Assassin oops yeah a nightblade is the assassin class, I am playing a Sorceror Nightblade basically or Mage Assassin as its better known

Lol no you didn't. It's 100% impossible.

Ok you still have it wrong. I think you mean a dual wielding sorcerer.

................. /facepalm or /facedesk or heck maybe even /facewall at this point lol

Not free DPS. At level 1 Unstable Familiar uses 95 Magicka and scales up with level.

Also DPS is great except when you have no control currently on what they attack, when etc. So not so hot when they go off and aggro a bunch of other stuff and not your current target ^^

I found them marginally useful to take initial aggro from ranged then range attack but it they do not hold it so well and there is no way of control it so less and useful really. Change that and their damage and they become worth considering.

Poisinivy played a Sorc Assasin. Stabby, casting, pet-summoning, Sorc.

Anyone can do that.

Nightblade is the official Class type, so it wasn't an actual Sorc-Nightblade class merge. I guess that's what throws everyone off.

As for the topic of the thread. I played an elemental Sorc but I thinkt he Artonach can be useful, so after release I will use a pet only to get enough skillups in the summoner line to be able to unlock the ultimate.

So far, I've found that Crystal Shard, Daedric Curse and Mages' Fury work pretty well, especially with the Shard morph that procs an instant-cast.

Know what's even more useful? Overload. But keep it a secret, I don't want too many overloaded sorcerers out there.

This , as much as i see posts from the devs about play however you want, if u want to play a traditional caster those 3 abiltiies will be on everyone;s casting bar along with magelight , light armor shield for dungeons and solo levelling, cant comment on pvp since i have never played it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-97mrfaqdw

Somewhere around the 6 minute mark she fights a Sorc with a Clanfear. She completely and totally ignores the clanfear and goes after the player.

That's because pets aren't worth killing because they do no damage and can't hurt you. This is a problem.

The Sorcerer has an entire skill line that is pretty much useless in PvP.

I agree with you OP, usually summoning classes are my favorite in RPG's and MMO's - not this time around. I was so excited for the Conjuration spells in ESO, until I actually used and saw the conjured minions (or the lack thereof) in the beta. What a disappointment.

I really wish they would remove the pink/purple tint off all your summons, and let you at least choose their color, or just make them the same skin as other daedra. Secondly, I wish they would bring back Storm Atronachs, Fire Atronach, and let us summon and raise undead minions. Otherwise, Conjuration is so lackluster in it's current implementation.

Games like Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, Diablo II/III, Oblivion, Skyrim (especially the modded Conjuration spells) etc were all so enjoyable to play a summoner, and I only wish they would take more concepts from those games and put them in ESO.

I must admit, I am baffled, the general tone here is the EXACT opposite of my personal experience with the skill line. I played a mage to 21, even cleared a dungeon solo, as a light armor mage with no deff skills, and only because of summons. Imho the summons are amazing. The clanfear (i prefer clanfear over unstable familiar) deals about 1/4 of what you do with normal attacks, tail swipes regularly for small but consistent aoe and if you compare that to other classes a 25% dmg boost to auto's is something only very few have. And the winged twillight hits even stronger, + gives whole party 10% extra magicka regen. The costs, while high, are reasonable since you get 15% max magicka back when a minion dies, with the innate 26% magicka cost reduce on mages that’s about half of what they cost. The winged twilight has relatively good AI and Instantaneously moves out of aoe and rarely gets targeted anyway, and the clanfear provides an excellent meat shield if the tank is in trouble (mine lasted through 5 hits from Rorick, buying us almost 10 seonds when the tank decided to die). And besides, what ELSE would you want to take anyway??

You have a) Crystal blast for steady magicka dumping (so far in the beta that was the best scalling and most magicka->dmg efficient spell out there)

Mages Fury for executing

c) Lightning splash for aoe damage (better than daedric curse, morph it to 6 meter diameter and that thing fills half the room, and is really cheap at -36% costs, and profits both from 6% bonus dmg trait and 6% bonus dmg aldmer)

and if you want d) Surge for auto attacking boost. Everything else is dps inefficient anyway.

Ofc lightning form or encase can be useful in some situations, but then you can just drop clanfear.

AND you have 2 slots left for endurance dumpers (or Elemental weakness if you fancy destro staffs... elemental weakness is pretty damn sixy). I, personally, always ran with both clanfear and winged twilight and i visibly did more damage than most people, especially steady damage.

Bottom line, one is able to choose 1 class and then go for skill trees linked to weapons such as dual wield. But there is no access to other classes skill trees. You played a sorcerer, and have NO access to the Nightblade class skill trees. We get it, you played a sorcerer using an assassin play style. But you did not pick skills from the assassination skill line if you are a sorcerer.

Having used the summoning skill tree in the beta and being a fan of conjuration in previous games, I won't be using it when the game is launched...

Let's see...Summoners in AION. Any who played knows that a bar came up for you to command the summon. You could essentially make the summon run from heavy attacks, attack, come back, ext. ...even stand still. Best summon class I have played in any game. ALT+1 through 4 for summon abilities could work here for simple tasks...hold for power attack, ext. Also, give a small (small) boost to health and damage or give a way to upgrade...like, I dunno, feed them soul gems that give them unstackable and temporary buffs to said stats.

(Not saying this needs to be AION, before I get flamed. Just giving an idea of something that worked and could work here.)

It would definitely be nice to have some kind of pet commands, like attack and back off.

I can just about guarantee that no one will be using them at competetive levels, especially in PvP.