Double Daemons

Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster. I finally got my mage up high enough where I can cast 8th circle spells. I was pretty disturbed to see that daemons require 5 control slots. Since then I have been scouring the forums for information about this and why this was a thing. I saw a post from 7 years ago that talked about this but it seems like things have changed since then. So stop me if I am wrong with anything here.

I can always remember summoning two daemons back on OSI, however apparently back when they first implemented control slots, daemons were made to take up all 5. The 8 we have here is a UO:R change. But why was this changed? Well from what I have read, simply to buff tamers. But I am at a loss. Were tamer templates not top tier already? Don't get me wrong, I love tamers. But its hard to imagine giving them an entire Dragon worth of control slots yet a mage can only summon a water/fire elemental with those 3 extra slots. As far as the daemon itself goes, I understand that it is as strong as its wild counterpart, and that is appreciated. But it still cannot be used towards any decent effect against stronger magical creatures. Heck, I have an issue with mere Imps dispelling my daemon. But the Elementals... They are just horrendously weak and easily dispelled. That single extra Dragon that tamers can have could easily wipe the floor with a Daemon and a fire Elemental.

Now to clear things up, tamers do deserve to be at the top of the food chain. It is the most difficult skill to raise after all. Magery is still somewhat difficult but macroing has made everything 10x easier than it once was. I am wholeheartedly confused as to why tamers got that buff so they can have two dragons and ride a nightmare, but a Mage can still have only 1 daemon. A daemon that can barely hold a candle to a freshly tamed dragon, let alone a trained one. Allowing mages to summon two daemons would not make them that much more powerful, and it certainly would not bring them any where close to a Tamer in the power gap. Decreasing their slots to 4 slots would still mean mages would have to be dismounted, which is fine I guess. I'd personally prefer it if daemons were 3 Slots, so that we could mount. But I ain't pushing my luck on it. It has surprised me since I came to this server how difficult it is to find a post about pure mage (PvM) templates, and I feel like this would go a long way to helping pure mages be more popular, or at least more useful.

So please reduce the follower slot requirements of daemons to 4.

That would be amazing for mages and mage/dexxers, for sure!

Can we please stop with the "taming is difficult to raise" justification. It's not.

I fully agree summons are woefully underpowered. When your 8th circle spell is countered by a 5th that any worthwhile mob can cast, your summons aren't weak because of control slots.

Agreed. I believe some folks have got it down to less than a day or twos endeavour from 50.

Yeah @Holden is right. Anything that makes you the most powerful build possible should not be easy to accomplish.

I still remember being wowed on OSI when I saw the first tamers to to get dragons as pets.

Totally agree. Besides, we would be sacrificing mounts if we are to summon double daemons, which im ok with.

It will open some more options for the ones who choose to roll with it, yet it wont overpower noone. Daemons, despite its increased resistance, get dispelled easily against strong casters, so...

Double Daemons please!

I mean, I gotta agree. As a mage, in PvM we are already limited by our mana pool. Which is why summons are such a valuable asset. We summon them, get our mana back, and then we can use them for a time and stretch out our mana. We simply cannot kill higher tier monsters on a single mana bar unless we get lucky to spam more blade spirits faster than they dispel, but honestly I find that difficult. Instead we must run away, meditate, and come back and hope it hasnt healed too much. That is the pure mage experience.

I am happy with the strength of a summoned daemon. It can take on a drake fairly well. Even a regular lich. But anything stronger and it's having a rough time. So we have to ensure we can summon another one by having half a mana bar readily available by the time it dies to summon another. And that is IF it doesn't get dispelled. I really like summoning. It is my favorite part of UO. But "history perfected" has certainly caught the summoning spells in possibly the worst state it was ever in.

And again, I still can't understand the reasoning behind buffing the already powerful tamers, but not the significantly less powerful mages. An entire dragon. Yet we are still stuck with 1 daemon, which is no where even close to the strength of a dragon. Hell, 2 daemons couldnt take on a dragon, a trained one especially. Not even with dispel immunity!

Would love it. Anything to give mages and dexxer/mages a little more flex. Still wouldn't touch tamers, but I'd be a happy camper if there was something to have fun with that gives the farming capabilities and survivability that tamers have... well still wouldn't reach that level, but even a comparable half of what tamers are capable of would be nice.

I too remember being able to summon two demons to be my "minions". It would in no way equal a tamers power, but would at least give the flexibility for a mage to farm and enjoy some of the content that is impossible. Demons being dispelled so easily is also a hindrance in which justifies allowing for control slots for demons to be lowered to three which allows for both a mount and 2 demons. There is no discernible reason to having a summoned demon which is still weaker in my opinion than a dragon to be more control slots.

It's not even opinion. a freshly tamed dragon is more powerful than a daemon by a considerable margin. I am running a disco mage and even discorded, the dragon is quite a bit stronger than my daemon. But dragons can also be trained, with 0 worries of dispel or a timer running out. A fully trained dragon, would easily dispel a daemon, and munch right through a non-summoned one with relative ease.

I just dont see why we can only summon one when a tamers nightmare alone is stronger than it, yet they can also have 2 dragons!

Double Daemons!

I'm going to argue against this logic and say that I rather see tamables do less damage (maybe at least 50% of their counter parts in the wild like AMIBs), to increase their challenge and make it more fun. Earning stuff on your own shouldn't be that easy nor does it promote teamplay. Don't make mages, summons or whatever stronger, make tamers less easy imo. $0.02

Taming is not hard, just time consuming. Much like Lockpicking.

+1 for daemons to be 3 control slots. I completely AFK macrod a tamer and the firepower difference is an order of magnitude better.
If you didn’t tweak the current PvM dispel levels it wouldn’t make mages that much stronger. They would be stuck using deamons against non-magic or low level caster. The 50 mana for 8th circle spells isn’t worth the amounts of dispels on high leve mobs.

Following up on my earlier comment, Im glad to see people agree with how easy yet powerful taming is. I'm wondering why you would rather insist on making yet another powerful build, taking away from the challenges of the game (easymode 3 box already..), than making taming less powerful (controlled pets doing less damage is easily implemented) to level out the playing field?

No one disagrees that tamers are powerful here. But after the battle of nerfing tamers has been fought over many years and even spun Shadowjack on many rage quits and tantrums, most know the nerfs will never happen.

With that said, a boost to summons is very unlikely as well. Players fought for years to see something improve for archery but all they got was a reduced accuracy penalty while moving and arrows and bolts to stack properly while training. Neither of which really drove people to see any value in the skill.

Taming isn't going to get touched. Too much is dependant on taming that keep the long running vets.. zookeeper, Champs, etc...

Yeah, expecting changes on taming it´s not realistic at this stage. The most they can do is to nerf tames at events, which been happening, but thats it.

Asking for this and expecting some change ain´t realistic either. There´s a post from 2014 or so that proposed exactly the same, and here we are 6 years later.
And there´s a huge amount of items that makes this list. Either way, I will still vouch for these kind of things to be treated. Hopefully we may see some of them being implemented.

I much prefer games that balance things by making everything powerful, rather than making everything weak.
Id get tired quickly if everything was kind of boring, weak and bland, but balanced
Id rather be like:
"F' yeah, my tamer is so powerful and cool!"
"F' yeah, my provo double daemon mage rocks!"
"F' yeah, my stealth lockpicker is so relaxing and fun!"
"F' yeah, my axer hit SO hard!"
"F' yeah, my stun mage is super deadly and hard to kill!"
"F' yeah, my LuckyCharms vet warrior is so satisfying!"
"F' yeah, my 5x Provo mage is a pk's worst nightmare because I can provo onto players!!!"
"F' yeah, my plants are so friggin sexy!
"F' yeah, my Archer hits stuff so hard from the back!

Double DEAMONS!

I quit playing about a month, maybe less, after I posted this. Glad to see everyone agrees. Unfortunately, I see little has changed in my time away. Though I did see that they nerfed tamers during some new events, bumping them down to a 5 slot limit. This inadvertently also nerfs pure mage builds. Congratulations, one daemon and no mount. And all 4 elementals are still completely useless to cast.

It wouldn't be so bad if most of the PvM events weren't balanced around tamers and provos, but since they are, pure mage builds suffer heavily from weak elementals and having only 1 daemon. Shouldn't have to spam blade spirits or energy vortex as our only option. There should be no justification for 4/8 of the 8th circle spells to be essentially useless, and another to be just okay (daemon).

I get that summon daemon was buffed to be as strong as its wild counterpart, and that is an appreciated feature, but even so the daemon is not that strong, especially considering it's biggest weakness being an instant dispell that can hit at any time. I would like to see the elementals given the same treatment as the daemon, to be more useful in a game balanced around tamers and provos, but also for the daemon to cost less slots. I'd say 3 max due to the new events capping you at 5 control slots.