Talk to the Team: Conjurer

With the next content update nearing completion, we're once again looking at projects on our backlog to implement for the next update. One of the items on the list was Conjurer, so I wanted to put this to the community for feedback.

Conjurer
Conjurer is currently a school that has little actual focus, but instead has a few useful abilities such as Glaring Quills, Infix Fury, and Glare. What type of school does it want to be? A Nuker? A Crowd Controller? A Debuffer?

What is a Conjurer?
- A person who conjures
- A performer of tricks

How would this be implemented?
Conjurer should be a school that would work to debuff enemies or buff allies through the use of “illusions”, while providing some direct nuking support. Conjurer would do this through the use of summoned combat allies that would provide a “specialization” and a set of abilities.

These abilities would provide buffs, debuffs, and attacks as well as potential direct benefits to the caster. Conjurers would no longer use the Ice/Flame Elements as a mana-like resource to cast.

Summons
Summon abilities would be tied together and would have a lengthy recycle to discourge frequent switching.

Kheprit Beetle - Flame Ally

• Flame Adept (Passive)
• Fireflies - An Illusion of Fire that acts as a Mez and causes the target to take greater damage from fire.
• Raging Elemental - An illusion of Fire that emboldens the caster’s allies, increasing +FireResistance and causing their attacks to have a %Chance to cause extra fire damage.
• Phoenix Rising - Flame AoE, %Chance to cause Burning (Fire DoT) or Terrified (Mez)
• Infix Fury - An illusion of Fire that enhances a weapon to do extra fire damage (ethereal)
• Adekanian's Bane - Illusion of Fire, stackable fire resistance buff
• Blazing Vermin - Illusion of Summoning, Flame DoT and lowers target's to-hit
• Korrai's Fireball - Illusion of Summoning, direct damage, chance to cause AoE if target has been previously hit by Fireflies

Hrimwarg - Ice Ally, Viking word for Hoarfrost and Old English word for Wolf

• Ice Adept (Passive)
• Hoarfrost - An Illusion of Ice that acts as a Mez and causes the target to take greater damage from ice.
• Fata Morgana - An illusion of Ice that acts as a protective barrier to all within the AoE range, providing +IceResistance to allies and giving their attacks to do extra ice damage.
• Icy Whirlwind - Ice AoE, %Chance to cause Freezing (Ice DoT) or Frozen (Stun)
• Wuot Iss - An illusion of Ice that enhances a weapon to do extra ice damage (ethereal)
• Frozen Fog - Illusion of Ice, stackable ice resistance debuff
• Cone of Cold - Illusion of Summoning, single target with subsequent AoE
• Faldora's Spear - Illusion of Summoning, direct damage with chance to shatter and cause AoE damage if target has been hit by Hoarfrost previously

Armadillo - Martial Ally

• Glaring Quills (Passive) (While Equipped)
• Cloud of Barbs - An illusion of Matter that causes the target to take greater damage from Piercing and Slashing attacks.
• Barb of Jor’dan - Directed and ranged matter attack, %Chance to cause Overburdened (Slow)
• Barrier of Alma-Tok - An illusion of Matter that provides the target with temporary enhanced resistance to Crush, Slash and Piercing damage (Was Ice Barrier)
• Armor of Bala-Tok - Increases threat by 2.5x and % chance to absorb incoming attacks
• Matter Strike - Single target bolt
• Varran's Totem - Illusion of Summoning, summons a totem that causes the caster to do 25% greater damage and generate 300% more threat
• Visage of Loricatus - Illusion of Summoning, player version of harden shell

Living Spark - Energy Ally, Thunder Blight

• Energy Adept (Passive)
• Glare - Ranged energy attack, %Chance to cause Blinded (Stun)
• Dancing Rapier - Illusion of Energy, a rapier that floats around the target and causes the target to become distracted, greatly raises the caster’s evasion.
• Motes - Illusion of Energy, flickering lights, AoE and chance to mez
• Fate - Target believes he or she will die when timer expires (does not work on epics)
• Veil of Merras - Illusion of Energy, incoming physical attacks are more likely to reflect back at target
• Mordekan's Mist - Illusion of Summoning, a mist blankets the area reducing to-hit and reduces agro
• Galavan's Mark - Illusion of Summoning, summons a mark over the target which makes attacks have a higher chance to do maximum damage

Directed

• Coordinated Matter Bolt

Support

• Summoning Affinity
• Shield of Torkath - Absorbs one incoming special attacks (was Phoenix Shield)
• Barrier of Torkath - Absorbs three incoming special attacks
• Wall of Torkath - Absorbs five incoming special attacks (not masterable)
• Greater Summoning Affinity - +Summoning, reduces recycle of summon abilities
• Coordinated Torrent - AoE illusion of summoning that does damage against every target in range that has Coordinated debuff

Well you got me hooked to that idea there, as I actively played CONJ for a looong time and still might do from time to time.
However, the new infix fury and wuot iss, sound nice, but will it work with spells? As a spellcaster, I want that on my spells too. :p

Myself I played conjurer mainly as a rather hard hitting nuker, that can buff a bit too, so I would love to see some more damaging abilities or even spells unique to it that can show that nuking side a bit more since it really has the porential to ‘conjure’ those nuking abilities out of nowhere ;)
Would also love if Phoenix Rising and its new counterparts aren’t casted from the caster’s center, mage going into CQC, that’s battlemage imo.

Love the pet idea, but... Say I already got the Surtheim ally equipped or a spider that’s full with items and I can’t put it into my inventory, doesn’t this mean I lose half my abilities then?
Also if I die just after summoning a pet (can happen during an epic hunt), doesn’t that mean I’ll lose half of my abilities for the remainder of the fight too? :l
Also small dislike to not being able to use the buffs at all times anymore there, but well, that’s because I love lots of buffs hah.

Though.. Illusions? Isn’t that more fit for Sorc? To me conjurer conjures actual physically impacting things, using the summoning skill and the ‘arcane element’ skills imbued into said conjured thing (spell/ability/pet).
Like say summoning the armor from Shining Blades seems a good fit to me, or the ‘rage of the energy demon’ spell from the epic spells video, conjuring an energy demon from the realm of energy. Or the ‘Dancing Rapiers’ (possesed? :p) that help protect you.

While there’s a lot of definitions that say a magician, illusionist, there’s also those that say conjurers summon spirits, demons, something ‘supernatural’ that’s what I think fits istaria’s conjurer more.
As we got Sorc for illusions no? :p

Since I’m kinda against the illusions (heh.) , instead of illusions that deal extra <type> damage, maybe ‘conjurers a helping <type> being/demon/spirit/golem that coordinates its attacks with the target’s ‘ (description).

One flame/ice/slash/crush/pierce resistance increases (Kheprit, Hrimwarg, Armadillo) - unless it provides a boost of at several thousand (2000 at LEAST) resistance, this is useless. If you don't want to boost resistance by that much, consider instead something that decreases incoming damage by e.g -15% (saying that number provisionally, but also, if they ONLY protect against these damage types - of which ice is used incredibly rarely (fire at least has surthiem to it and the melee resistances are nice for most normal enemies and SoG) - then it needs to be big to be worth it in the situations that call for it, and since it is only protecting against one damage type it shouldn't be OP.)

On a related note - having +resistance to fire and then an ability which also increases somethings weakness to fire (and then ice for the wolf respectively) isn't really useful. Thats because most things which do flame damage (and so a shield is good for) also resist flame damage (making the +damage part useless), same for things which do ice damage generally resist ice damage. So...one part of these abilties will always be useless. Unless how the abilties in question (hoarfrost, fata morgana, fireflies, raging elemental) generally has two effects as an answer to this predicament - in which case i'd expect both parts of these abilties to be powerful as one part will always be useless anyway. (barrier of amla tok suffers slightly less from this due to 2/3 damage types that don't always present this issue - though it still does, just less, unlike pretty much everything that deals ice/fire damage is highly resistant to their respective damage type.)

Dancing Rapier's boost to evasion is another thing where i go hmmm, because, just like damage resistances, you need A LOT to see any impact at all, so i expcet that again to be an least 1500 boost.

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I like it, but it needs to have good stats to be a useful biped school. If it's given the low stats on abilties and buffs/debuffs that most debuff schools get (-gestures to mystics which are redeemed entirely by syphons- -gestures to energy damage which is redeemed entirely by stuns-) with no redeeming factor like they have (i don't really see any unless damage is high - but with the low damage of the arcane caster schools in general, im not really sure what would become of high damage in conj), then it'll be useless still.

Azath brings up some points I didn’t think about yet too... Totally correct there with it mainly being useless since fire based mobs usually are immume if not near immume to fire... So summoning the fire pet for an also useless resistance buff isn’t the best thing to do. Idem for ice pet.

Though a 1500 boost in evasion instead of a ward/resistance, now that’s a different cookie. 250-500 of that shows already a noticeable difference. Resistance on the other hand... I don’t notice much if anything with 1k resistance of a type.

So I’d prefer either a damage boost of said type as passive or an incoming damage reduction for that type instead of resistance/ward, though it would still be not so useful as once again, you get tougher against say fire, but at the same time, you grow weaker in damage since now half of your attacks, if not more, are pretty much fighting fire with fire.
While you could say ‘<tier> cystal of ice damage’ but lower tier = less damage once again and higher tier = more incoming fire damage, making an incoming fire damage reduction pretty much void. Plus extra damage on hit doesn’t change with a damage type modifier (and counts like frozen weapon tech kit probably as some kind of spell damage, making it void against project x , might be other mobs that resist ‘spells’ like that..)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by flamefeniks

Though.. Illusions? Isn’t that more fit for Sorc? To me conjurer conjures actual physically impacting things, using the summoning skill and the ‘arcane element’ skills imbued into said conjured thing (spell/ability/pet).

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Agree with this 100% - illusions seems more down sorc's path. I'd think a conjurer is one to pick at the very roots of elemental magic, calling forth beasts by plucking at the link between istaria and the realms of magic themselves.

I don't think illusions or pets are the nature of the conjurer at all. Conjurers are the fire/ice/summon specialized elite mage class. Since mages are fire specialized on their own, I see conjurer as having the basic fire abilities of mages, without a lot of the bells and whistles, but with better ice and summon ones. They are about bringing materials into existence, and they are the only mystic class that provides several unique buffs to others as well as themselves. Sorcerors should be the best at crowd control, and wizards should be about energy and stuns. Mages should be jacks of all mystical trades. I would focus any conjurer changes on maintaining this theme of damage, unique buffs, and the strategic application of fire, ice, and summoned materials.

General thoughts about existing abilities-- fireflies is useless and largely a weaker version of Engulf,which conjurers also get. I'd replace it with a debuff to fire and/or ice, perhaps both a resistance and ward debuff, or a percentage increase to incoming fire or ice damage. Maybe replace the entire line with two smaller lines, one for fire and one for ice.

The whole fire and ice elements mechanic doesn't really currently bring anything to the school. I'd either disband it completely, or turn it into a mini-game, where the elements give the conjurer a small buff per retained element. That way there is a small trade off between retaining the buff, or using an element to cast an ability. If you do this, though, the timer on generating new elements would have to be increased, as there currently is not much stopping the conjurer from refilling the “tanks” at need.

Phoenix rising is entirely too weak, and too ineffective at hitting targets attacking the conjurer, to justify using it, almost ever. I don't know why, but it often does not apply to nearby attackers if you are on uneven ground. If you are going to keep it, think about increasing the radius and damage.

Ice barrier does not scale well. It also applies only to crush/slash/pierce. I would replace it with a damage barrier that absorbs a certain amount of any type of damage that would otherwise go to the conjurer before being dispelled.

You might consider creating a weaker ability, ice shield, which could be cast as a buff on others, but otherwise functions like ice barrier. This name would distinguish it from the ice armor abilities out there.

I don't really have any complaints about phoenix shield, glaring quills or ice rapier. By far the most useful of these is glaring quills. Phoenix shield is very tame compared to spirit walk, but it can be cast on others. However, since it only absorbs one attack, it is rarely worth doing. I would be willing to trade all of these, except maybe glaring quills, for some of my new ideas.

Other ideas for new abilities would be summoning abilities that snare the target (boots of tar or mud), or one that causes an interruption or very brief stun (a pool of oil, that causes the target to slip and fall). These are all classic fantasy abilities related to summoning.

I suppose a magic missiles, or bullets, ability, that does crush damage would work as well, causing a barrage of several small damage attacks on a single target.

My overall thought about the unique role of a conjurer is to protect themselves, and to a lesser degree others, really really well by summoning protective shields. At the upper levels, as their crowning unique abilities, a conjurer should be able to summon a wall around the caster or other allied target. This would be a beneficial buff that would have several trade-offs and provide real utility in group fights. The wall would absorb damage directed at the target, like ice barrier or ice shield, but at a much higher level. However, the target would be immobilized and incapable of taking any actions. The wall would have a long timer, perhaps a minute or two, and could be voluntarily removed at any time by the target, but otherwise it would not be able to be dispelled before the timer runs out or it takes enough damage. There could be several various walls, each with slightly different effects and absorption capabilities, depending on the elements summoned:

Wall of fire: weakest damage absorption, but the wall causes an aoe flame damage effect over time to enemies within a short radius (5-10) of the target. Ice damage doubled versus the wall.

Wall of water: low damage absorption, but the target of the wall gets a regenerative heal over time effect applied.

Wall of ice: medium damage absorption, and the wall causes a slow debuff (similar to the ice disciple's freezing touch) to enemies within a short radius of the wall. Flame damage doubled versus the wall.

Wall of stone: superlative damage absorption, but no other effects.

I like this line of abilities, because it gives the conjurer a viable slot in groups as a damage dealer who can also provide unique buffs and an option to save a vital group member when others' abilities are timed out or unavailable for other reasons. This would also distinguish them from sorcerers, wizards and mages while still keeping in the vibe of the summoner of physical effects and materials.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmonGwareth

With the next content update nearing completion, we're once again looking at projects on our backlog to implement for the next update. One of the items on the list was Conjurer, so I wanted to put this to the community for feedback.

Conjurer
Conjurer is currently a school that has little actual focus, but instead has a few useful abilities such as Glaring Quills, Infix Fury, and Glare. What type of school does it want to be? A Nuker? A Crowd Controller? A Debuffer?

What is a Conjurer?
- A person who conjures
- A performer of tricks

How would this be implemented?
Conjurer should be a school that would work to debuff enemies or buff allies through the use of “illusions”, while providing some direct nuking support. Conjurer would do this through the use of summoned combat allies that would provide a “specialization” and a set of abilities.

These abilities would provide buffs, debuffs, and attacks as well as potential direct benefits to the caster. Conjurers would no longer use the Ice/Flame Elements as a mana-like resource to cast.

Summons
Summon abilities would be tied together and would have a lengthy recycle to discourge frequent switching.

Kheprit Beetle - Flame Ally

• Flame Adept (Passive)
• Fireflies - An Illusion of Fire that acts as a Mez and causes the target to take greater damage from fire.
• Raging Elemental - An illusion of Fire that emboldens the caster’s allies, increasing +FireResistance and causing their attacks to have a %Chance to cause extra fire damage.
• Phoenix Rising - Flame AoE, %Chance to cause Burning (Fire DoT) or Terrified (Mez)
• Infix Fury - An illusion of Fire that enhances a weapon to do extra fire damage (ethereal)

Hrimwarg - Ice Ally, Viking word for Hoarfrost and Old English word for Wolf

• Ice Adept (Passive)
• Hoarfrost - An Illusion of Ice that acts as a Mez and causes the target to take greater damage from ice.
• Fata Morgana - An illusion of Ice that acts as a protective barrier to all within the AoE range, providing +IceResistance to allies and giving their attacks to do extra ice damage.
• Icy Whirlwind - Ice AoE, %Chance to cause Freezing (Ice DoT) or Frozen (Stun)
• Wuot Iss - An illusion of Ice that enhances a weapon to do extra ice damage (ethereal)

Armadillo - Martial Ally

• Glaring Quills (Passive) (While Equipped)
• Cloud of Barbs - An illusion of Matter that causes the target to take greater damage from Piercing and Slashing attacks.
• Barb of Jor’dan - Directed and ranged matter attack, %Chance to cause Overburdened (Slow)
• Barrier of Alma-Tok - An illusion of Matter that provides the target with temporary enhanced resistance to Crush, Slash and Piercing damage (Was Ice Barrier)

Living Spark - Energy Ally, Thunder Blight

• Energy Adept (Passive)
• Glare - Ranged energy attack, %Chance to cause Blinded (Stun)
• Dancing Rapier - Illusion of Energy, a rapier that floats around the target and causes the target to become distracted, greatly raises the caster’s evasion.
• (One more illusion, TBD)

Directed

• Coordinated Matter Bolt

Support

• Summoning Affinity
• Shield of Torkath - Absorbs one incoming special attacks (was Phoenix Shield)
• Barrier of Torkath - Absorbs three incoming special attacks
• Wall of Torkath - Absorbs five incoming special attacks (not masterable)

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I like everything I see in this listing so far. Trickery seems proper fit for this class. as long as certain abilities stay the same. so all within reason

If I understand this proposal correctly, many of the current abilities of Conjurer will be tied to one or another of the summons. The summons will be mutually exclusive, with a long recycle to discourage switching between them.

I really do not like this, it may weaken Conjurer substantially by severely limiting the abilities available at any one time. It also makes the conjurer more structured and less flexible in play. It looks like this is trying to use the new tech implemented for KnoC - nothing wrong with that - but that tech might be better used in a school less connected to KnoC, on the Mystic side. This design also makes the Conjurer feel kind of like a swiss-army knife style character, without any clear role. That kind of design works adequately if the character can rapidly switch between roles depending on what's needed, but fast switching is missing from this design. If they're not adaptable, there's not much that they bring to the table compared to other schools.

I agree that the current implementation feels bland. Here are some suggestions:

1. Add some spells to Summoning. It has only 2 spells, some more would be welcome and could give character to the Conjuror school. It would also be good if Summoning had some influence on KnoC effectiveness - right now Summoning seems more like a tag/enabler than an actual skill. High summoning skill seems nearly irrelevant. [There's an Ice and a Flame summoning spell. Where's the Energy one?]

2. Consider how the school interacts as part of a multi-school character. (I don't see that in the design here.) Conjurer currently provides a damage buff (Infix Fury), a physical defense buff (Ice Barrier), Multicast II, and the best Ice skill. It's not very exciting, and its hard to make the case for including Conjurer in a multischool character - except to max Ice score. I'm also not seeing synergy in the above design with other schools. (As an example, one of my 'oooooh!' moments in exploring this game was when I noticed that Cleric could use 2-H crush weapons, even though they didn't get that skill. That makes some nice synergy between Cleric and Warden/Chaos Warrior.)

3. To build on the Ice focus of the school, add to the unique aspects of Ice skill: lowering movement and evasion. For party combat, add an ability that significantly lowers evasion for a short period so that a coordinated party would be able to deliver a reliable damage spike (like one and a half swings of the slowest weapons/abilities). A Glare ability suggestive of the blindness from sun reflecting off ice could lower ranged attack accuracy (maybe spell accuracy too?) - either as a debuff on an enemy, or a buff to ranged evasion on the Conjurer.

4. On the illusion/trickery side:
-an ability like DnD's Faerie Fire that lowered enemies' evasion of ranged attacks/spells ;
-a self-targeted illusion of health that disappears when the spell ends, possibly killing the conjuror;
-a foe-targeted illusion of health that suppressed/confused their healing AI (couple ways to do this, one would be to temporarily add health to the target, so that healing would not trigger, then remove it after a short time providing a damage spike);
-a multiple images spell/ability that lowered attackers' accuracy or increased conjuror's evasion (or target's evasion);
-a dancing lights spell (even if it did nothing more than a differently-colored version of the light circling an unlooted corpse, but around a target enemy or friend -- it would be a handy utility spell);
- an ability/spell that lengthened an enemy spellcaster's cast time (buzzing/distracting noise?)
- a summoned illusion that distracts a following enemy (breaks pursuit/targeting) - an anti-taunt.

On the Mystic side, Shaman has significant debuffs as abilities. There are no significant debuffing schools on the Arcane side - Sorcerer is chiefly a crowd control school with mental stat debuffs in Mind spells. Conjurer could fill a debuffing role on the Arcane side. To make it distinct, focus the debuffing on evasion/accuracy, action/spellcasting time, skill/spell recharge time, attacker focus, etc. Stat and damage debuffs are covered by other schools.

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Wanted to follow-up on this a little cause I have some additional notes.

Added an additional illusion to both Flame and Ice - a stackable debuff that would lower the target's flame/ice resistance.

Modified the Martial specialization by making the Conjurer into more of a tank while in this path:

Armadillo - Martial Ally, Tank Specialization

• Glaring Quills (Passive) (While Equipped)
  
• Cloud of Barbs - An illusion of Matter that causes the target to take greater damage from Piercing and Slashing attacks.
  
• Barb of Jor’dan - Directed and ranged matter attack, %Chance to cause Overburdened (Slow)
  
• Barrier of Alma-Tok - An illusion of Matter that provides the target with temporary enhanced resistance to Crush, Slash and Piercing damage (Was Ice Barrier)
  
• ? - (Passive) - Increases threat by 2.5x, % chance to absorb incoming attacks
  
• Matter Strike - Directed single target bolt attack
  
  

And turned the Energy specialization into more of a crowd controller path:

Living Spark - Energy Ally, Thunder Blight, Crowd Control Specialization

• Energy Adept (Passive)
  
• Glare - Ranged energy attack, %Chance to cause Blinded (Stun)
  
• Dancing Rapier - Illusion of Energy, a rapier that floats around the target and causes the target to become distracted, greatly raises the caster’s evasion. Self target?
  
• Motes - Illusion of Energy, flickering lights, AoE, lowers to-hit of target, % chance to mez
  
• Fate - Target believes he/she will die when the timer expires, 60s recycle, low chance to actually hit, 45s duration at the end of which the target does die, target gains 20% more health, improves recycle by 50%, is not dispellable. Some monsters would ignore this as "Creatures of Fate".

What kind of timers are we looking at here? I mean if they will have a lengthy recycle, I am concerned about how long the ally will stay. Or maybe have somewhat a life of his own in retrospect? With conjurer having the ability to heal his ally if required. Or are we talking hours here, log off and or if you die type of effect? Or more like KNoC, where they stay until you remove or change them (I like this option as it keeps in line with similar features of KNoC abilities) These need to be a bit addressed in some detail.

The more I look at it, the more I start to like it, but there's some points I still don't like or got concerns about.

Firstly, it's too rigid, a long recycle on the switching I can understand (somewhat), but it's too rigid, needs to be more flexible, even knoc can change almost whenever it wants, so why shouldn't Conjurer too?

Secondly, as mentioned before +<type>Resist, I'm guessing it's going to be something like 200-250 max? Personally I would prefer dropping the resist part, and instead -10% incoming <type> damage. As with resists, while it builds up per attack, you still need great amounts for a big impact.

As for the third point, Living Spark being CC I can agree with, but maybe have Dancing Rapier also boost Magic Evasion? (though Living Spark would be almost near useless against T6/epics, except one or 2 epics, and all will probably be Creatures of Fate, understandable I guess otherwise epics would be near instantly dead).

Lastly, the tanking specialization worries me a lot.
Conjurer is a cloth-armored school, meaning it's going to have the least amount of armor for tanking and most likely health too, while buffs could help with that, it'd have to be a big help then, or the absorb has to be really frequent to allow survival, since you've got 3 heals as an arcane caster, just 3.
And the overburdening attack seems useless? Considering you're supposed to be the tank as Armadillo, 9/10 times you'll be in melee range, you've got no real use for roots there.

Well actually I've got one more thing, also about the Armadillo, the "Takes greater damage from piercing and slashing" part; So far I don't really know of any creature that takes more damage from pierce/slash/crush than from another type (Flame, Energy, Ice, Spirit, Primal, Nature, Blight) and even if it does, with the <type> attacks granting +X damage (delay adjusted) it means later on, when everyone can use <type> attack buffs it wouldn't do anything as all will be using <type> attack buffs, unless there's a real good reason to make everyone throw away that extra damage?

Honestly, I'm liking a lot of what I see. I hadn't really liked the look of the Summoner class before, but now it looks like something I'd actually play alongside KnoC or Battlemage.


One thing I didn't see much mention of was new spells for the summoning line. Are there any that are being thought of? Having a school with merely 3 spells (not including the epic) has always seemed silly to me, especially considering both damaging spells have some of the longest cast times I've seen as of yet (7 seconds for flaming spear!).


I'd like to see some new summoning spells in general alongside this re-vamp. All the spells could go along with the general idea of the new abilities themselves. Spells like:

Cloak of Quills: Summon a protective cloak of barbs around you which return piercing damage to those who attack you for X damage or X time. (Think Cloak of Thorns).

Summon Kiglatic's Ice: Conjure a patch of ice underneath a foe, throwing them off balance and increasing their attack cycle time.

Summon Delgageth's Boulders: Creates a rift leading to the elemental plane of earth where a boulder falls out, striking the target for X crush or X nature damage.

Those are just a few ideas, there's so much that can be done with the summoning spell line.

Any new info on potential Conjuror or Conjuration spell svhool updates?

No going to lie, the idea of potentially new Conjuration spells that even KNoC could use excited me!

Have added some new updates to the list of abilities in each summoning path.

Energy Specialisation ? erm, Conjurer don't get Energy, only Fire and Ice.
Sounds like your encroaching on another school now to make a different one stronger?
Energy is Wizard.
Why would anyone choose Wizard again? reminds me of the saying "robbing Peter to pay Paul"

The goal of the revamps is to give each school a purpose. They aren't tied to an element, but rather to a purpose... Conjurer will be more closely tied to crowd control through the use of conjured illusions. Individual elements have no bearing on it, beyond the specialization that each "ally" brings.

Wizard, if I was to hazard a theory, would be more of a direct damage school.

Wont you have to have points in the skill though to make it effective or are we talking about the Conj having "fighting pets" ?