Fixing Swarmblade Summoner

[Voctor]

Warning: Long read because that’s how I roll.

I haven’t been a big fan of the summoner style of Swarmblade and judging from the comments on the recent poll I don’t seem to be alone in that, so I figured I’d write up a more detailed post here to detail what I think the problems are and some possible solutions.

I think the problems the summoner build has come down to 2 main issues, the playstyle and skill synergies.

For playstyle, it just doesn’t feel good to use the hives. You have to summon a thing that then summons another thing that finally attacks. When summoning hives you have to manage the cooldown, charges, and rage cost. The hives release a limited number of bugs, and the bugs have a limited duration in addition to being killable. It’s just too awkward. There are too many failure points and things that need to be managed, all for a payoff that is basically just a more clunky version of Summon Wraith.

Then there’s the synergy problem. If building around summons the options for your non-swarmblade skills are very limited. Mainly your best bet is to just specialize around getting as many companions as possible since you can’t use other skills while you’re in the form, but then you’re just a worse Beastmaster. Beastmasters have better access to companions, better passives, and access to their actives without going down the Inspiring Swarm path.

So a fix for summoner Swarmblade would need to address these two issues. Make the locusts more fun to play with, and give them interesting build options that don’t just come down to “Beastmaster but worse”. The best way to do this is to really lean in to what makes Locusts different from Companions, that they represent waves of disposable minions rather than a few strong summons. There are lots of ways to do that, but this is my take on it.

First, we remove the Summon Hive skill. Make the locusts spawn as a passive effect just for being in the Swarmblade form. The locusts would have an extremely low aggro/tether range to the player, somewhere around the size of the Maelstrom skill. This keeps them grouped around the player to give the feeling of being the center of an actual swarm. Then we give them a new skill - Command Swarm - which sets their aggro/teather to a target unit and spreads out from them like Spirit Plague while giving them a short duration buff. If the player leaves the Swarmblade form it removes the teather entirely, releasing the Locusts to randomly attack enemies in the area. This change has many beneficial effects to Swarmblade gameplay.

1. It gets rid of the “Summons that summon other summons” issue that never really feels good to play.

2. It gives melee Swarmblade a distinction from Werebear, because all builds would have the swarm of locusts interacting with their gameplay. Even if they aren’t being built around, they can still be used to absorb hits or provide support with the right passives.

3. Using the Locusts offensively would have 3 distinct styles. You could direct them from range, fight up close along side them, or shift into Swarmblade to build up a swarm and then shift out of the form to release them.

4. It would make Swarm Strike useful to melee builds. Currently if you’re building around Armblade Slash and/or Dive there’s no reason to ever press the Swarm Strike button. Using the other attacks means you’re not summoning hives, which means you don’t have locusts to power Swarm Strike, which means that all melee Swarmblade builds are 1-2 button builds. Making the locust spawn passive would make it possible to use Armblade Slash, Dive, and Swarm Strike all in the same build if you want to.

Then we have to address the synergies issue. There isn’t necessarily a problem with a build getting most or all of its power from a single skill, but with Primalist it really makes it hard to justify doing anything with the other skill specializations other than getting a bunch of companions. To make Swarmblade Summoner distinct from Beastmaster we need to discourage reliance on companions and lean harder into the swarm of locusts as the core of the build.

Since we’ve removed hives we start by removing all the hive/summon related passives from the Swarmblade skill tree. In their place we create new passives that interact with other skills on the Primalist skill tree and promote the locust swarm over using Companions.

First is Swarmhost, and several locust transforms locked behind it. Transforms are all exclusive, having one overwrites another so they can only benefit from one at a time similar to the way damage conversion passives work.

Swarmhost (2 Levels): Locust Spawn Rate +100%, Maximum Companions -1

Bombardier Beetles: Locusts gain a ranged spell attack and a healing aura. When you do not control a Spriggan, your Summon Spriggan skill tree applies to your Locusts. Locusts cannot summon Vines.

Rhinoceros Beetles: When you do not control a Bear, your Summon Bear skill tree applies to your locusts.

Wasps: Your Locusts gain a Poison Sting attack with 100% chance to poison. When you do not control a Scorpion, your Summon Scorpion skill tree applies to your locusts. Locusts cannot summon Baby Scorpions.

Since we don’t have hives anymore we need to change the Spriggan transforms as well.

Blades of the Forest: Converts all vines into locusts

Swarmkeeper’s Call: All locusts gain “summon a vine at this location on death”

And to add some more synergy options give the locusts a support passive:

Greater Good: When your Locusts die, they have an X% chance per level to cast Eterra’s Blessing. The Eterra’s Blessing is effected by its skill tree.

Other than that we keep the more generic Locust passives like Frost Bites and Earth Stinger. Obviously this would involve a lot of numbers adjustments, as it is giving the Locusts a lot more potential power but right now I think they need it. I think something like this would open up a much wider variety of fun builds and playstyles that let the Swarmblade do something unique rather than just being a worse Beastmaster or Necromancer.