Summons! (spoilers maybe and a bit long)

[chickenhed]

I like summons. They make me happy. I enjoy summoning an army of powerful fighters/fodder and blasting away in the back lines with a mage. Or summoning my army, and charging in there with my fighter/cleric or fighter/druid.

I spent about an hour last night CLUAing in monsters to fight against summons to test their power. I was hoping to cross reference my findings with the experience of those on this board (experience which far outweighs my own). This is what I came up with:

The planetar was, overall, the toughest fighter. Combined with the amazing spell arsenal, and you have a ridiculously powerful summon.

HOWEVER, I don't feel like being a mage this time through the game. So I wanted to pit a mage's best summon with what I think SHOULD be the best summoner in the game, the druid. The best druidic summon? Well that should be the HLA Greater Elemental Summoning. I am summoning the princes themselves! They better kick butt! now, did they?

Overall, no. I was VERY disappointed with the prince of fire and air. Pitted against various incredibly tough monsters (unfair i know, but i wanted to see) like a lich, dragon, adamantium golem, etc and the princes could barely get a hit in. However, put those monsters against the planetar or even the cleric's deva, and they often came out on top!

Now, you notice that I did not mention the prince of Earth, Sunnis. Holy COW this guy is a MONSTER! I was completely shocked by his domination in the field of battle! A hasted Sunnis (I hasted all the summons when testing) defeated a red dragon, adamantium golem, and a lich one on one! the only assistance i gave him (which is the same for the other summons too) is help with dispelling the lich.

That brings me to my final round of testing. I put the planetar against Sunnis. Now I will say that I did not use any of the planetar's spells. I'm sure if I did, things would have turned out differently. That being said, Sunnis completely wiped the floor with the planetar. It wasnt even a close match. This is all due, I believe, to one spell that Sunnis automatically casts on himself at the beginning of every fight, which is Stoneskiin. Because of this one spell, Sunnis can absorb an obscene amount of punishment. As well, he can dish it out FAR more than the other princes. Getting an extra +3 to hit, and doing an average of around 30 damage per hit.

Lastly Sunnis, like the other princes as well, have very high magic resistance. This allowed him to stay toe to toe with the lich.

As a side note, the planetar beat the crap out of the prince of fire and air. Not even a close match at all.

My conclusion is of pure annoyance. If there was a "Summon Prince Sunnis" I would pick the druid in a heartbeat as the class to play for my summoning character. But I HATE that I have to save, and load, until I get the all powerful Sunnis. I'm sorry, but it just annoys me to no end.

So this brings me (FINALLY) to what I hope to get from this forum. Your opinions of the summons in this game. Do you guys generally agree with my final assesment? Planetar being the most powerful overall, but Sunnis being the toughest SOB in a toe to toe fight? What are your experiences with summons? All comments welcome!