As wrong as Mushidoz is, those memes might be a tad inappropriate coming from DMs.

I can't imagine where you're drawing this level of professional standard from.

Lithorn, Salem, Serenade, Silverstone - all caster characters I have been boss hunting heavily with, and the only time I recall one of their summon took damage was when greater ruin was cast on it. Their summons just tank the living crap out of every epic boss I've fought against (basically, all of them except the Actand / Phane.. and perhaps some I do not know in the underdark?). I do not need to be a mage to see just how they plow through things, I can see that on my screen every time I get invited to hunt (all by mages - Saya has a LOT of caster friends)

I don't know how much AB/AC the geared golem has, but I don't recall seeing it miss often either. On the contrary, I recall very clearly just sitting back and looking at the pirate and chest get soloed by that golem like it's nothing, while Saya struggles to deal 3 dmg to the chest with her critical hits (heck, dominagus as well - both the dragon and golem have a seemingly easy time to hit that boss, which requires touched attack or spells to hit reliably), so I stand at a distance waiting for the pirate to use pulse so that I don't get killed (and usually it won't pulse before dying because the golem / dragon deals 40+ dmg to it without taking damage)

Dunno, I invite you to watch someone with the geared golem solo hunt epic bosses, because clearly it's happening and I see it --veeery often-- and I don't need to be dm for that.

- Elemental dies the way I mentioned
- Maximus does not approach the mage and can't kill the geared golem, so he gets killed in one greater ruin and some spits to the face
- Pirate/chest is entirely soloed by either EMD or dragon knight (except when the dragon get pulsed.. golem is immune though)
- Vampire.. no idea, I fear the children more than I fear the boss and I have no idea what he even does because he's usually dead before any sort of fight can occur
- Darkness gets pummeled to death by the summon while the mage goes spellblock in the back
- Windy - never seen a solo mage do it because I am always in groups. Similarly, I have no idea why that boss is considered epic because I never seen it survive half a round
- Maximus - seen it get hit by the golem, which is something I can ony do with crits. Will very easily tank the boss while the mage blasts it from the back
- Beholder majesty - can tank some, not the best to fight that boss.. but then a lvl 17 has access to the spell that makes this boss a pussy with the cheapest most well known "strategy" ever, so it's pretty irrelevant
- Snowbeast. That one might damage the golem, but it won't survive long enough if fire spells are shot at it
-Fire giant king... lol

Nope, list is done, seen at least 2 summons completely tank / survive these bosses without trouble. If the mage can dish out damage from the back without interruption because that ONE spell allows them to, I say that summon is too good at what it does.

Now, if your claim is "well you can't consider the summon when it's buffed! It's weak when unbuffed" it's the same as saying mages are weak because they need buffs to fight, or that you have to balance the server according to unbuffed mages. It makes no sense whatsoever. Whenever you think of these summons, you have to consider they automatically come with these buffs ESPECIALLY if we're talking pvm because mages will have these spells available and will put them on the summon before they fight. And with these buffs and raw stats, they are either too tanky or too damagy for the little investment this feat require. They're basically a walking / damaging / tanking 500+ HP damage buffer.

This just depresses me into thinking that I seriously haven't got my shit together. I play an epic sorc with a Geared Guardian and have in no way seen this as an easy task.

Except that a summon is in no way even close to a melee character powerwise when said meleer reaches 30.

believe melee is more powerful than a caster on average

In PnP, which is what I was talking about there, the summons literally are as good or often better than a melee character.

Also, I do not comment on PvP balance, because I think trying to balance classes for one on one arena-style PvP is completely pointless and yet another design policy I strongly disagree with on Amia. I think it has led to many unfun changes and a lot of work put into a pointless and ultimately futile effort. Party balance for dungeons is what we should worry about, if anything, but even that is a mess I do not think we could ever actually perfectly fix.

(and a rogue familiar)

We don't generally balance around PvP. Its far easier to balance around PvE. While some PvP considerations are nice, to help put things into perspective, its ultimately not what we look at.

From what someone said above, with the summons soloing the elemental and taking little to no damage, That makes them equal. And that's with you a human directing the shifter (using what shape?), and the NWN engine directing the summon, which would lead me to believe the summon is stronger on paper than the similar shifter shape.

This is not to say the shifter class isn't strong, btw. The versatility alone makes the class stronger than the summon, but comparing a class to a summon is silly. That should be no comparison.

I can't realistically make you a form worth it compared to your undead shapes; it's simply a nightmare to balance it well enough. Giving PCs the shade drain is simply too much as well, because it only works as it is does because of the restriction to 2 attacks per round and that it's not controlled by a human mind.

That it reassuring. All the balance discussions I see on the forums seem to be all about PvP all the time, so I was under the impression PvP balance was a priority.