Talk:Summon

Archive

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• Archive 1 (from Talk:Pet)
• Archive 2 (from Talk:Summoned ally)
• Archive 3 (from Talk:Summoned ally)

This definition is kind of irrelevant alongside Pet, which already lists all possible, including summonable pets. Spirits weapons, elementals, minions, thieves, warband members and even turrets can all be considered summoned. Mediggo 13:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I quite like this page, it's good to see a list of the actual summons, albeit incomplete. I like how it includes armour upgrades as well. I believe it should stay and be updated. Maybe a bit more organisation as well- like split into sections like "Skill", "Elite Skill", "Rune" etc. ~ ♥ Kailani! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ 13:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I also say "keep" but I would as I made the page, lol. Im afraid my wiki-fu isn't that good so hence the page being a bit crap. I mainly wanted to get all the summons that are not profession specific on one page. Titan Crow 13:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I also think the distinction is useful. All the other types of pets are unique to a specific profession, are either skill-based or profession-mechanic-based, and have their own article. The pets on this page are distinct in that they are item-based, and they are cross-profession. The pet article serves as an overview of all of these different subtypes - IMO this detail page should not be merged into the overview page.

However, I understand your argument that all those other skill-based pets are also "summoned". Maybe we just need a better name for this subtype. —Dr Ishmael 13:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, Pet should exclusively redirect to ranger animal companion and all other summoned NPC allies should be referred to as, well, summons, IMHO. I never quite liked defining turrets or spirit weapons as "pets," even if it may be too late to change community's opinion on that. Mediggo 18:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point. This seems like one convention that should be challenged, because it just doesn't make sense. —Dr Ishmael 18:40, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Has the official terminology of pets changed to summons, then? - Infinite - talk 18:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, I didn't realize the wiki's definition of "pet" was based on existing official usage. Source? Never mind, found it. Blech, it just feels wrong, though. —Dr Ishmael 18:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I keep forgetting stuff that doesn't make sense. Mediggo 18:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Trust me, I am this close to believing everyone would want "pets" to make sense. - Infinite - talk 18:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

In all of the ranger skill descriptions the pet is referred to as 'your pet'. I think we're being weird referring to it as animal companion (which I don't think they use at all). We should give real consideration to giving pet back to the ranger and demoting the other use to a disambiguation because afaik, people/players/wiki users just get confused about us calling all those summons, and turrets and others pets. In this case I think we're better off ignoring whatever ANet internally calls them. -- aspectacle  19:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe ArenaNet has changed their official/internal terminology already, but forgot to publish this change. - Infinite - talk 19:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That may be. Either way, I don't think we need to be slavishly tied to documenting this according to that interview because when viewed in context of the game using the term like that makes it more confusing than it should be. -- aspectacle  19:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I tried bringing up the whole pet definition thing before. It's all a bit crazy, Rangers have pets and everybody else has something else, something other than pets, IMO. Either way, this doesn't help with a new name for all these summonable critters, "summons" wouldn't work if we redefined the "pet" definition and it doesn't really work with the definition as it is now. Titan Crow 20:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You're not the only one.

Animal companion is the only more permanent sort of NPC ally readily available to players, but even they can, or must, be summoned or dismissed via pet swap (which is much more relevant in later levels when multiple pet slots are available and because pets are not very durable). Everything currently listed in Pet must be summoned by player in a way or another. "Summoning" is also explicitly referred in-game, especially within scholar skill descriptions for minions, elementals and clones. Can't non-profession summons be called just "common" summons or something like that? That way we could finally get rid of awkwardness of Pet (if I'm not the only one looking forward to that?). Mediggo 07:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Righty, Im going to remove the Merge template from the page. Im off out for the day but if no-one has said anything by the time I get back, I'll remove it then. Titan Crow 08:41, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Summoning isn't just restricted to pets

Rune of the Rata Sum - Summoning is also used to describe the spawning of certain effects. - Infinite - talk 10:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

This article name should perhaps be reserved to actual mechanic on summoning because people might search for it and the term is probably going to be used in that way anyway. Mediggo 10:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree. And moved to [[Summoning]] accordingly. The individual summons should subsequently receive individual articles, I reckon. - Infinite - talk 10:32, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Another option would be defining radiation field something like Autocast, since that is essentially what happens with Rata Sum rune. It's just a wording inconsistency in rune description, IMO, but the point made still applies. Mediggo 11:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

But this page isn't for "Summoning" the mechanic, it's for "Summon" the pet type, hence why the pet page links here and not a game machanic page. I actually think the page should be reverted. Titan Crow 11:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Summoning exists as an in-game term and is used in all those runes and sigils, and it makes sense. Summonable allies from skills and such, like those already listed on the page, definitely classify as summons in the same logic and should remain on the page. Mediggo 12:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm also still thinking about merging the whole thing from Pet on this based on discussion in above section. It doesn't make sense to call illusions or turrets pets. Mediggo 12:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I absolutly agree with redefining the whole pet thing but I found a lot of resistance when I brought it up in the past. Regarding the Summon/Summoning issue, I kinda reckon that there should actually be two pages, one for Summons (for the pets that are summoned) and one for Summoning (for actual act of summoning a creatures, object or effect). Titan Crow 13:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

If we get our way of redefining all summoned creatures as summons for real, then the act of summoning would immediately refer to those very summons and perhaps there'd be no need to explicitly define summoning. The two overlap quite a lot. Mediggo 13:11, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Effects?

Im not sure that an effect is/can be summoned. Doesn't pretty much every skill summon/create/conjour an effect (or at least magic skills, like ele's, mesmer's skills ect...)? Like isn't that what most spellcaster's skills do? For example, Fireball, its description says "Cast a fireball that explodes on impact and hits multiple foes." but it goes without saying that the ele summons/creates/conjours the fireball, right? Maybe Im reading too much into this. X /

Love the new page layout btw. Titan Crow 14:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, "effects" is way too vague, as everything has an effect. —Dr Ishmael 14:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Expand?

Shouldn't this page contain the skills Summon Druid Spirit and Summon Fern Mastiff, since all the ones on the page already seem to be racial skills, not to mention the "summon" in their names? Also this page should contain profession specific summons such as Thieves Guild, Glyph of Lesser Elementals, Glyph of Elementals ( the elemental summons i'm not sure about since they are technically glyphs... ), maybe even Spirit Weapons? I know the mechanics are different, but to me it seems like any skill that creates an AI controlled ally that helps you out is a summon (the reason why i didn't mention Spirits, even though they might also be on the page)... 95.180.84.110 02:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the Druid spirit and fern mastiff to my attention, these should indeed be on this page. All the other summons that you mentioned are covered on the [[Summoned ally]] page. Also, Please sign your comments. Titan Crow 21:01, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

But he did sign? Chieftain Alex 22:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Right you are, it was well late and was clearly too tired to be making edits lol. Was looking for a name to use when thanking him but when I couldn't find one, I must of though he didn't sign. My bad, sorry. Titan Crow 08:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Companion

Companion is an in-game turn for these guys and a very good term for them, not sure if summon or summoned ally is also an in-game term but often referred to as such.--Relyk ~ talk > 09:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

There was a long debate as how to define the summon and Summoned ally pages. I am going to remove the part about Illusions as it is covered in the Summoned Ally page and it is also linked from the profession summons mechanic table. In regards to the table, Im going to re-add all the profession summon types and re-name it as "Profession Summon Types" as thats exactly what it is and not a skills table (as it has no skills in it). By adding all the profession summon types, and with all the other tables, this page links to all the different summons and summon types in the game but does not go into detail about any one of them in specific. Cheers : ) Titan Crow 12:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

No it's not, don't just post on the talk page and revert me yet again. The summoned ally page needs to be deleted, it's a made up term. Those are skills available to professions that create summoned allies, they are not this "Profession Summon Types" term you seem to be infatuated with.--Relyk ~ talk > 17:15, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Dude, although I don't actually think that the Summon ally nees deleting, I do agree that it the whole summon/summon ally needs readdressing at some point. But... when we had the whole debate at the beging, it was common census that it be left as it is. So, like I said before, we can't just go changing this page without redefining the whole issue.

To my mind, the summon ally page should should realy have been more like this page (a reference page) and the summon page should have just had the mechanics of summoning. Regardless, at it stands atm, a piece on Illusions does not belong on this page and we need to reference all sommon skills and mechanics so all the profession summoning mechanics is also needed. You can call the table what ever you want as long as it implys that its each profession and its summoning mechanics or type/family/group of summoned ally or whatever. : ) Titan Crow 18:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Summoning isn't actually a game mechanic, it's just a term you used to describe the creation of something by the player. Objects and NPCs you "summon" are completely unrelated to each other, so there's no point in grouping them together and labeling it a game mechanic. Conjures and turrets will likely get their own subsections on objects and environmental weapons relating back to their main articles. It may be a cool reference on how much crap you can spawn at once on a profession, but it's not useful information. They can also be stuck in the See Also section as they are related in the vaguest sense that they are all profession mechanics.--Relyk ~ talk > 22:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Merging [[Summoned ally]] with Summon

There is a lot of information on the two pages that is redundant, and the definition of summoned ally is somewhat arbitrary. I think it would be better to have one larger page here, rather than two half-fleshed out pages. Bundles does not need to be involved in the merge, because there are numerous bundles available outside of skills. Aqua (talk) 17:00, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. 'Summoned ally' was always a weird article name to me. —Ventriloquist 18:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Complete. Talk pages migrated here since there is a lot of old content. -Chieftain Alex 22:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Feedback 2017/03/04

Revenants don't have access to a summon, do they? --99.13.227.47 11:31, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, the Ventari's tablet could be considered one. —Ventriloquist 23:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Removal of Runes from Page

Removed Runes as a Summoning Source after Secrets of the Obscure as all 6th effects on Runes have been removed. Hoping to add Relics as a source as more become available with "Summoning" effects, though I'm not sure if the current Relics that Summon (Relic of Cerus for example) would count as a legitimate summon before community consensus. --ParadoxOmnideath (talk) 04:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)