Pantheon's Summoner rework replaces Swarm with a stacking DoT

Visionary Realms detailed a rework of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's Summoner class in a January 27 dev diary, ahead of a refresh the studio has slated for February. The post opened by conceding the class's current state, listing community complaints the team said it accepts: a swarm mechanic described as boring and cumbersome, underperforming pets, a spell book full of unused abilities, and a general failure to make players feel like masters of summoning.

The Arcamentals

The team restated the class fiction to anchor the redesign. The Mana Plane holds near-sentient beings of arcane energy called Mana Ghosts, formless and purposeless until a Summoner gives them one. Using arcane summoning and a discipline the studio calls arcaneering, a Summoner pulls a Mana Ghost across time and space and binds it to a magical or elemental property. The most reliable bindings so far have been to Mana magic, Earth, Water and Wind, with Fire still described as unruly and experimental.

The resulting pets are Arcamentals, sorted into four types. The Fury is bound to Mana magic and deals heavy magic damage at range. The Zephyr, bound to Wind, deals fast physical damage up close. The Titan, bound to Earth, is built to protect the Summoner and pin down enemies. The Undine, bound to Water, handles healing and support for the Summoner, allies and one other Arcamental — and is the only pet that can be active alongside another.

Arcamentals grow stronger as the Summoner levels, unlocking more of their ability sets. They can also be equipped: Arcamental armor found in the world or conjured by the Summoner raises health, armor and resistances, while Arcamental weapons raise spell and physical damage.

How the Summoner fights

The design goal is to make the pet the primary actor in combat, with most of the class's output routed through it. The studio described the intended feel as a puppet master: Summoners keep a limited personal arsenal, but the majority of the abilities they press in a fight are cast through the pet.

The most visible casualty is Swarm, which the team wrote about with open sarcasm about how much players will miss it. It is being converted into a stacking damage-over-time ability called Mana Missiles, which periodically opens a small portal near a target and fires a mana bolt through it. The effect stacks up to three times and scales its magic damage with the stack count, giving the Summoner a passive damage contribution while attention stays on pet abilities. The studio also noted that the visuals shown are not final.

The Summoner's bomb abilities are expanding as well. Alongside the existing Mana Bomb, the team is adding Clash Bomb, described as a high-damage magic detonation, plus further bomb types it has not yet revealed. Like Mana Missiles, these are meant to be woven around pet abilities rather than to replace them.

One change reaches further than the rest: pets no longer draw on their own mana pool. Every pet ability that costs mana now spends the Summoner's, though pet abilities are priced well below the Summoner's own spells. The studio said its own spells are intended for sparing use during sustained damage, with the option of a burn phase in which a Summoner leans hard on personal abilities alongside the pet's.

The Fury and Zephyr, the two damage pets, are getting expanded ability sets with better flow and most of those abilities made Summoner-activated. The studio said the diary was not meant to reveal the full arsenals, and cautioned that spell names may change. It also noted that the Fury will now try to hold spellcasting range in combat.