How would a class centered around summoning work in WoW?

[Rheckameohs]

Alright, so a few years ago, my oldest son was deeply interested in Yu-G-Oh!, and would frequently wrap me into playing. Recently, I was digging through some boxes (because even after four years we're still not completely unpacked) and I found my old deck.

Then I had an idea: what if there were a class in WoW whose mechanics revolved around the idea of summoning? You summon a number of smaller creatures, and you can sacrifice some or all of them to summon a larger creature, etc. Each summon provides the summoner with a number of abilities he otherwise wouldn't be able to use, and in the case of more powerful summons, useful group-wide buffs.

I would imagine that such a class would use mana as a resource that is used to summon your weakest monsters and to fuel your latent and summon-based attacks and abilities. The summons themselves could work as a resource as well as you need to sacrifice a certain number of lesser monsters in order to summon larger ones. There could be three or more "tiers" of summons as well, e.g. lesser, major, and prime.

I don't know if such a class would be feasible within WoW. It's in essence a pet class on steroids - which would be difficult to balance - and it would be a nightmare trying to make it lore friendly. Either way, I'd play it.

How would you guys handle a summoning class?

[Deleted]

Well, do you control the minion with your char and let the minion fight while the summoner does nothing? In pvp they all could just attack the summoner which is harmless. If u dont mean this, then its basicly a hunter.

[Aftonflickan]

I seem to recall that Age of Conan had a warlock-like class (demonologist?) which was centered around the usage of summoned minions and pets. You could have 12+ different pets at once of varying strength, although all it really did was show the flaws of such a system. Every time you died you felt like a mum on the school-run as she has to unload all of the kids out of the mini van, as you had to stand still for a couple of minutes summoning all of the little bastards. It's AI was also quite limited and stupid, and as such it was mostly a nuisance :P

[Rheckameohs]

Well, do you control the minion with your char and let the minion fight while the summoner does nothing? In pvp they all could just attack the summoner which is harmless. If u dont mean this, then its basicly a hunter.

It's more akin to warlocks. Your summons are an important part of your overall performance, and you can control each individually, but their largest benefit is the abilities they give their summoner. The summons are also temporary, with each tier of summons having a longer duration. This coerces the summoner to better manage his summons based on the current situation.

[Deleted]

I dont think we need more pet classes really. Hunters are annoying enough with their army of pets..