So I rolled a goodie conjie on double xp day, like apparently half of everyone else. That aside, I can't stress how disappointed I was with the whole experience.

For some background, my last conjie was Kehade (orderly evil scion) back when the server farm blew up. Through a stroke of blind luck, I was able to obtain a vapor sprite (and possible the grease elemental) before I could even make circles. Evil conjie + rescuing servitor meant that I rarely used anything else. The number of times I used 'conjure elemental' was probably in the single digits.

Obviously that sort of blind luck doesn't strike twice, so this time around I was usually regular old elementals and angels instead of demons. After some use I couldn't help be think that they were changed or something since Kehade's time. I checked back into my logs, and it looks like the difference that I was seeing wasn't exactly a toning down, but rather this:

Regular elementals and angels attack like regular people. They have an initial round where they initiate, and then they strike during rounds just like normal people do. Demons and the "special" elementals have an "autoassist" (for lack of a better term) round in between rounds. This means that they do roughly twice as much melee damage as their counterparts.

My question is twofold I guess,

1) Why would 'conjured via item' elementals be so much better than class granted elementals when they aren't particularly difficult to obtain (so long as no one is hoarding them)?

I'm sure that some of that is the fact that you can't pump mana into the conjuring or binding, so you are going to get a lower level elemental on average. However, without being able to run a simulation, my gut feeling is that it's better to have twice as many attacks (as a mob) than be 9 levels higher than an opponent. Low defence opponents will obviously take more damage (even if individual hits are slight lower in damage) while high defence opponents have to block twice as many attacks (even if the chance on an individual attack is higher). Is my gut crazy?

2) Why do angels behave differently from demons in this regard (the in between rounds)?

They all do the same thing, so you lack the versatility of a demon conjie, and they do less damage. I can see wrath being a better attack type than the ones available to a demon, but I feel like demons "special" attacks (ie. acid blast, vitrolic stream, poison, mental knife, fireball, etc.) pretty much make up the difference there, especially given that they seem to prog with more frequency. My early conclusions are that angels just don't seem to significantly outdamage (via progs) demons even in a best case scenario, and are nearly useless in some situations (stupid outlanders), while also doing roughly half the melee damage. Again, am I crazy here?

I believe this was discussed and considered by design (the in between rounds thing) at some point, but I couldn't find it on forum search. It feels a little off to me, so I thought I'd throw it up for discussion and see if I am way of base, or if I've just noticed something other people haven't really seen.

Tac

Conjure via items does not usually put out more damage but they have other advantages. The vapor sprite does some extra damage between rounds but on the other hand you cannot put extra mana in it and make its attacks stronger. And it does not do any spells such as earthquake or fireballs. And you don't have twice as many attacks as far as I know.

Angels are easier to use and has other stuff that is nice, for example pillar and rescue.

Before drawing these conclusions.

An angel one-rounded a warrior within the last few days.

Angels damage comes faster than demons. The high demon damage comes with a signal in most cases, allowing you to do something to avoid it.