So this has been a concern of mine for a long time. Conjuration has always been one of my favorite schools of magic in Elder Scrolls games. One of my favorite character builds, maybe even my very favorite, is a Dunmer battle mage who uses Destruction, Conjuration, and swords. Its always been effective for me in past TES games and I'm very much hoping it will be in ESO.

However, I'm concerned. MMOs very rarely have effective summoned creatures, or "pets" as MMO gamers like to call them. Sometimes, they are good in PvE, but almost never are they good in PvP. The problem is, players are smart enough to just avoid the summoned creatures and attack the summoner. The second problem with summoning is that it often doesn't scale well with post-50 gear progression. If players get tougher and tougher and pets stay the same, then summoning eventually becomes obsolete. Now, you can fix this problem by linking the pets health and armor rating to the players, and some MMOs have. So I hope ESO does as well.

But the first problem can really only be dealt with by making summoned creatures hit hard.

This is ESPECIALLY true in ESO. In some MMOs, I simply don't care. I can have dozens of skills at one time. I can bring out a pet before the battle, hope it gives me a little bit more DPS, and not worry too much when it dies, since I have plenty of other skills.

In ESO, I can't do that. Nick Konkle recently announced in his interview on the ESO Alliance that summoned creatures will not persist through a weapon swap. The only way around this is to have the creature slotted on both bars. This means that to effectively run a summon build I have to either restrict myself to a single weapon and bar (with only 4 active skills) or use two slots, one for both bars (limiting me to 8 skills where others have 10.) If I wanted to have two summoned creatures (the twilight and the familiar) I would need to use FOUR slots and reduce my total number of active skills to 6.

On top of that, according to the Tamriel Foundy list of skill, the caster will have a permanent reduction in total magicka as long as the abilities are out. Assuming this is a somewhat significant amount, this means I have less magic for active spells.

All in all, to run a build that used 2 summoned creatures, I would need to give up a chunk of my magic and two slots on each bar.

So what does that mean? Summoned creatures better be strong. The damage out put from both creatures needs to be equal to or, honestly, higher than what I would have gotten by keeping my slots open for active skills. If I could better use that slot on a damage dealing skill, which gives me more control over the direction of the damage and when it gets used, then I would. Active skills could also be used for more utility type skills, like CC and healing. Basically, since I will be giving up so much to run a summoning build, you need to make it worth my while.

Personally, I think the better option would be to make summoned creatures persist through weapon swap. At that point, they only need to be as strong as a standard damage dealing skill, rather than stronger. As things currently are, they'll need to make summoned creatures strong enough that people would complain that they are "over powered" or no one will bother using them at all given the high cost. But if the devs have decided against that, then they really need to make sure these pets are both tough and hard hitting.

Here's to hoping ESO can buck the mold in MMOs and make summoning viable in PvP.

They've said they will:

Pet classes are almost always strong in MMOs. Hunters, warlocks, necromancers, you name it. Strong as hell.

I don't think Sorc's are going to be a problem in this game.

Well I never played WoW. Is that what you're referring to?

That and other games, but yeah.

As a person who had a 99 level Diablo 2 necromancer, I certainly am very interested in seeing summon builds be viable in PVE (first) and PVP (second).

I am strangely optimistic that summoning in ESO will be viable even in PVP due to the flexibility of the skill system.

I can imagine a tanky-ish healer mage in full heavy armor drawing and surviving pvp ganks while summoned creatures tear the attackers apart.

I do agree that to make that work, summons need to hit hard and fast so a player attacking you will be in peril himself for ignoring them. Ideally if it would take 10 seconds to kill you, the summons should kill him in 8 seconds.

The class can be good without summoning itself being good.

GW2 is an example. Necromancers were good for damage, utility, and even survivability. The minions they could summon were pretty much garbage though and could be freely ignored in PvP. In fact, you're better off not killing them to give the Necro any buffs/boons. In GW2 though they could many summons at once.

Sounds like ESO will only let you have a few.

I do not know, if you can get most of the skills as a sorcerer having a powerful pet is just a little OP for me, I am wondering if a nightblade would be comparable in damage with a sorcerer if they do not have pets, what would happen if a sorcerer did?

Nightblades have a pet. They can summon a shade.

And I hope that this pet is just as viable. I'm not just arguing for pets to be strong because I plan to be a sorcerer. Fact of the matter is, it sounds like they have made summoning really really costly. Permanent magic reduction plus double the number of skill slots that other abilities require.

If it isn't powerful then no one will use it and it might as well not even be in the game. Why bother slotting a familiar if you get more DPS out of a Storm Calling spell where you can also control the direction of the damage?

The other option is to have them give you really good utility. The ability of the Winged Twilight to heal is one good example.

That's really not that costly, unless it takes away a half or more of your magicka. Even then you still have all your stamina pool I fully expect the summons to be on the weaker side since it is so easy to negate their weaknesses just by how you built your character.

Is the shade sustained or burst?
i.e. short duration or permanent?
If it is temporary it is not really comparable

That information is behind the NDA firewall as of yet.