I love playing conjurers, and I love the concept of familiars. But I really wonder if familiars should maybe be revisted. When conjurers first went in, there were 9 familiars total, 3 for each alignment. Some of those familiars were pretty sweet, others were pretty sucky, and some were mediocre.

GOOD ALIGNED:

Faerie Dragon: permanent flight, faerie fog on a stick, faerie fire without starting combat (works out of pk), immune to sleep, awakens master if master is knocked out, no special sight, cannot carry items, strong fighter (medium hp, good damage reduction, high damage output (for a familiar))

Coyote: Camouflage, acute vision, carry one item, mediocre fighter (medium hp, medium damage output)

Owl: permanent flight, Fly above the world, detect hidden, turns to look at each person to enter the room, even when sneaking, carry one item, lousy fighter (low hp, low damage output)

NEUTRAL ALIGNED:

homonculus: non-breathing open/close, loot corpses/containers, eat magical items to heal self and (if standing next to master) heal master also, no special sight, boosts master's max mana when standing next to master, handles items (less than monkey but not sure how many), mediocre fighter (medium hp, medium damage output)

monkey: open/close, unlock/lock (with key in inventory), peek, steal, no special sight, handle items (x5), mediocre fighter (medium hp, medium damage output)

shadowcat: permanent pass door, hide, permanent sneak, no special sight, cannot carry items, lousy fighter (low hp, low damage output)

EVIL ALIGNED: (I'm less familiar with these, as I almost never play evil conjurers)

Imp: permanent flight?, non-breathing, curse without starting combat (even out of pk range), can speak, open/close, lock/unlock??? (not sure about that one), can handle items (not sure how many), cannot loot corpses or containers (IIRC), no special sight, can poison in combat (manually only), strong fighter (high hp (for a familiar), high damage output (for a familiar))

Quasit: non-breathing, hide, invis self, permanent sneak, allows master to regen as if slowed when standing next to master (I believe this also stacks with slow. I could be wrong, but pretty sure that's correct), detect hidden, handle items (forget how many), open/close, ???loot corpses/containers??? (I forget if it can do this or not), lousy fighter (low hp, low damage output)

Raven: I've never had this one, as I almost never play evil conjurer. I think it's pretty similar to owl, but can also speak? Not sure if it has detect hidden or not, lousy fighter (low hp, low damage output)


So that was how familiars started out. Even when it was just those 9 familiars, there were clearly some familiars that everyone dreaded getting, and some that everyone always wanted.

The good aligned familiars are all pretty decent in one way or another. Faerie dragon was coveted for combat prowess, though few knew at the time about its sleep immunity or ability to awaken its knocked-out master. Coyote was not prized for combat prowess, but acute vision is quite handy in dealing with outlanders. Owl was not prized for combat prowess, but was great for keeping watch for thieves and assassins.

With evil familiars, the vast majority of people wanted (and many still do want) quasit due to detect hidden, hide, sneak, and master regen as if slowed (super helpful when conjuring). Some people heavily disparaged imp, while others were smart enough to realize it was a beast in combat, and having curse on a stick was helpful for sealing kills (both yours and allies who were outside your pk range). I didn't see too many seeking after the raven.

With neutral familiars, most people wanted homonculus for its mana boost and ability to heal itself and master by eating magic items. Everyone else wanted monkey for peek/steal, unlock with keys. It was also an easy way to get rich fast since failed steal from a familiar at that time did not initiate combat with the familiar, and you could rob the Wizard in Galadon from all his potion of return profits. Stealing keys to unlock doors was also great for exploring. But when it came to shadowcat, I never met (and still have never met) anyone who enjoyed it as a familiar.


Then, several years ago (I forget how long it's been) 6 new familiars were introduced, 2 new familiars for each alignment:

GOOD ALIGNED:

cherub: permanent flight, non-breathing, assists master with conjure archon and conjure angel when standing next to master (this makes it noticeably easier to bring transplendant archons and lesser-archangels), can speak, open/close, can handle one item, cannot loot corpses/containers, does holy damage in combat, medium-strong fighter (hp comparable to coyote, damage output somewhere between coyote and faerie dragon in my experience)

djinn: permanent flight, permanent shield of winds, invis self, non-breathing, assists master with conjure elemental, can speak, open/close, unseal (this is the mystic thief skill INFILTRATE which allows lock picking without a physical tool and can be done mid-combat), can handle one item, cannot loot corpses/containers, wishgrant (see helpfile for wishgrant. Also, djinn, janni, and efrit each have a slightly different version of wishgrant. I forget the details of each), medium-strong fighter (about comparable to cherub)


NEUTRAL ALIGNED:

phase wasp: permanent flight, permanent pass door, rejoin (instantly rejoins master from any distance, even across continents or between the past and present), can handle one item, loot corpses/containers, very strong fighter (displaced (roughly 2/3 to 3/4 of incoming attacks strike at empty air, only works vs automatic melee attacks, not directed attacks), auto-poisons in combat (poison gets stronger as you go up in levels. By hero range, it lasts a pretty long time and is doing upper case damage each tick), seems like pretty good hp, medium-high damage output)

janni: identical to djinn except for: enlarge/reduce master at will, magic attack, slightly different wishgrant options, ???no shield of winds???


EVIL ALIGNED:

viper: permanent shield of slime, camouflage, permanent sneak, causes master to sneak when next to master, can swim (but not water breathing), can handle one item, not sure if it can loot anything or not, cannot open/close, acute vision, very strong fighter (high hp, has some damage reduction (I THINK, but could be wrong), deflection (works similar to phase wasp's displacement), auto-poisons in combat (comparable to phase wasp), high damage output (for a familiar)

efrit: identical to djinn and janni except for: permanent shield of flames, no enlarge/reduce, different attack type (I forget what it is), slightly different wishgrant options


From the beginning, it was always speculated how a PC's familiar was determined. It seemed very strongly likely that it was not totally random as Imms claimed, but for a long time, no one could figure it out. Then some math wiz realized it was a mathematical formula based on the alphabetical value of the letters in the PC's name. Once the formula was understood, a person could calculate a name for their PC that would guarantee they received exactly the familiar they wanted. Several players guarded this knowledge very carefully, but in time, news spread and it was eventually changed so that familiars were now totally and truly random.

Prior to the change to true randomness, however, those who knew how the formula worked always selected the same set of familiars. The only time you would see someone with shadowcat, for example, was when it was someone who didn't know how the formula worked. Among the players who DID know how it worked, you NEVER, EVER, EVER saw someone with a shadowcat, and rarely with coyote, raven, or imp (for evil conjurers, those who knew the formula always went for quasit). Good aligned almost always chose faerie dragon, but occasionally owl was chosen for detect hidden instead of combat prowess. Neutral usually chose homonculus for mana boost and familiar/master healing, plus a familiar that could go under water. Occasionally someone would choose monkey for use on an exploration character.

Once the 6 new familiars were added to the mix, the formula was tweaked slightly to include the two new additions to each alignment, and we saw a little more diversity of choice among those who knew the new formula. But the old familiars were still left the same as they always were, and the same familiars that were discarded at the beginning were STILL discarded. When the change was made to genuine randomness, we saw less discarding of familiars since many people didn't want to spend the time to rank up to 17 and then have to do it all over against because they got a familiar they didn't like. But there wasn't a very big drop in discarded familiars. Instead, players were just forced to discard their entire character each time the ended up with shadowcat, or whatever familiar it was that they really didn't want.

The change to true randomness did stop some people from discarding familiars (and the entire character with it), since even amongst the old familiars, there was still good usefulness on some of them. Owl, coyote, and imp, for instance. However, raven and shadowcat still remain largely useless and pathetically weak in comparison to all other familiars.

In the neutral category, there is absolutely ZERO reason to keep the shadowcat when you could have phase wasp instead. The only thing shadowcat can do that phase wasp can't is hide/sneak. But it's sort of a moot point when phase wasp defends itself so profoundly better than shadowcat does, and is also quite a bit more offensive and even much more utilitarian than shadowcat (carry 1 item/rejoin is quite potent).

In the evil category, raven is pretty useless when compared to quasit. I THINK raven has detect hidden just as owl does, but quasit also has detect hidden, can handle objects, and grants its master enhanced regen as if slowed and it even stacks with slow. Quasit can also hide and sneak. The only thing raven can do that quasit can't is fly above the world, and I think speak (I forget if quasit can speak or not. I don't think it can). When comparing the usefulness of these different abilities, though, I think 99.9% of players will choose enhanced regen as if slowed over a familiar that can fly above the world, and would choose hide/sneak above a familiar that can speak. So why accept a raven when you could have a quasit? If you get imp, efrit, or viper, they can all fight much better than the raven and have other potent abilities that the raven doesn't have. The only thing raven can do that they can't is detect hidden (which is covered by quasit) and fly above the world. And frankly, a familiar the flies above the world is only marginally useful. If an air shifter attacks it up there, it's too far away to release it and the air shifter will make it incredibly difficult for the bird familiar to flee. So bird familiar attacked in the air is almost a guaranteed -1/3 con loss. That makes bird familiar in the air almost a detriment rather than a boon.

Given all of this information and comparison, I very strongly think that it's time to take another look at the old familiars and see about balancing them to be more in line with the new familiars, especially the shadowcat and the raven. Some of the old familiars are perfect just the way they are, while some could use a little tweaking. But shadowcat and raven, quite frankly, need a substantial boost. As it stands, getting either of those is a guaranteed wasted character unless that character is a total newbie and has no idea what the other familiars can do.

Imp didn't poison in combat when I had it. It could poison food (which I did actually kill someone with).

Also many many conjies went for raven because of scouting abilities, and also ability to fly and land for easy tessing to.

Thus the dangers of trusting what other people say about something without having played or experienced it yourself. Posts that might have relevance get ignored because they're written by someone who actually doesn't know how things work while they're under the assumption that they do.

The only things that might be inaccurate are my estimates regarding hp of familiars and the differences in damage output of SOME of the familiars. Those things are based on what I remember from using them myself, or seeing someone else using them. I stated clearly that my knowledge of evil familiars was fairly limited as I almost never play evil familiars. However, most of what I said WAS accurate. If raven gets detect hidden, then all it really has going for it is fly and detect hidden. Quasit, on the other hand, also has detect hidden (quasit is one evil familiar I DO know well, as I HAVE played with a quasit, and I loved it, though it did royally suck in combat), but can hide itself also to keep it fairly safe, it sneaks so you can move it around (with awesome familiar speed) without anyone noticing if an enemy with detect hidden starts getting close to it, and it DOES make you regen very rapidly which is extremely useful when conjuring. As for using raven's fly ability to move it quickly to someplace you want to tesseract to, terrestrial bound famliars with perma-flight or non-breathing can be moved with familiar-speed very rapidly to a tesseract location also. It might be a tiny bit slower than a bird familiar, but if you know the exact steps on the path well, it's not that much different in speed. Bird familiars move through the air very slowly. So basically, anything you can do with the raven, you can do with quasit also, but quasit can also do SO much more than raven. So why take raven at all?

The same principle goes for shadowcat and phase wasp. The only thing shadow cat can do that phase wasp can't is hide/sneak. But shadowcat cannot cross water without finding a way to give it flight or water breathing (since it can't even carry 1 item to carry a boat), cannot cross places where flight is needed, cannot fetch an item from a distance for you, cannot defend well at all, cannot deal damage at all, and certainly cannot rejoin to skip instantly from anyplace in the game back to its master. If a conjurer with shadowcat is in Seantryn, with his familiar beside him, and a rager shows up and attacks the conjurer so that the conjurer recalls to a different continent, shadowcat will be stranded on the modan continent until the master can physically set foot on the same continent again to release it. Until that happens, the familiar will be too far away to be released, and cannot even be commanded to cross the ocean on its own. Who in their right mind would ever want to take shadowcat in light of this?

Raven and Shadowcat are the two worst familiar options. There is always a better option available besides those two. As for other familliars, I have zero complaints against the 6 newer familiars. From the older familiars, monkey and homonculus are both useful familiars in their own way, offering something unique and highly useful that no other familiar can do (from any alignment). From the older, good aligned familiars, owl is useful because it's the only good-aligned familiar with detect hidden, and the fact that it points out everyone who enters the room is useful too. However, if it ever gets involved in combat, it's going to die extremely quickly, even with warded and warrior familiar, though those two edges might give it enough survivability for the conjurer to release it, provided that it isn't being bashed to death. Coyote is useful for acute vision, but when compared to the only other familiar with acute vision (viper), it pales in comparison. Granted, viper is evil, so you don't get a choice between coyote and viper, but it does still reveal a significant imbalance. If an evil conjurer with viper ends up with his familiar getting attacked, then the viper has a good chance of survival. Conversely, if a conjurer with a coyote ends up with HIS familiar getting attacked, if the attacker is smart about it, coyote has a good chance of dying.

Regarding imp's poison, it's been a very, very, VERY long time since I actually HAD an imp. I don't think I've had imp since shortly after conjurers first went in. Consequently, my memory of their poison ability is probably hampered. I do remember that imp was largely shunned prior to the newer familiars being introduced, though frankly I never understood why. I always thought imp was a beast of a fighter (thereby giving it a high chance of survivability), and having non-combat curse on a stick is pretty nice.

In short, raven and shadowcat DEFINITELY need a boost. Owl and coyote could probably use a little upward tweaking as well. The rest of the familiars I think are very worthwhile just as they are (though given that cherub helps conjure angels and archons, I always thought it would be cool if imp got tweaked to assist in conjuring demons or devils, whichever is more fitting).

So rapidly finds prey and makes it easy to read around

gr

Or gets bashed on another continent. See how easy it is to release then.

You're doing something wrong.

Unless someone sets a very clever trap you should not be exposing your familiar to those risks.

I've played quite a few air shifters also, and I've slaughtered a lot of owls and ravens that I ran across in the air just by accident. Bird familiars move very slowly through the sky, about the same speed as the earliest air forms capable of high altitude flight. Top tier air forms, however, move very rapidly. If a falcon, eagle, or vulture suddenly stumbles onto a bird familiar in the sky and attacks first without pause, there is very little opportunity for the conjurer to order his familiar to land before the attack begins. Once the attack begins, it's nearly impossible to flee. The only high altitude familiar to escape me when I've played a predator air shifter was that baby nightwalker quest familiar. The rest of the owls and ravens got eaten as they attempted to flee and my tier 1 predator air form caught up to them and reengaged.

As for being caught on the ground, it's true that it's much easier to avoid combat, but given that owls and ravens do not sneak or hide, if someone knows there is an enemy conjurer in pk range, it's no trouble to include WHERE FAMILIAR as a regularly checked command every time they enter a new area. When I'm playing a battlerager, that's exactly what I do when there's a conjurer in my reach, and I've nailed quite a few like that because I caught the familiar by surprise. Having a familiar that's capable of surviving a few rounds to give a chance to order it to flee can make a huge difference. As it stands, owls and ravens get splattered so quick once engaged that you don't get much time at all to respond.

Don't have the familiar up there at those times.

gr

The last time I had an owl familiar, I could not release it while it was in the sky. You get the message, "You're familiar is too far away to release it." The fact that you keep suggesting to release familiar while it's in the sky makes me think that you haven't played a conjurer with a high flying familiar in a long time.

Way back when conjurers first went in, you COULD release a familiar that was flying through the sky. But that hasn't been true for a few years now at least, unless something has changed again recently. The last owl familiar I had was probably about 2 years ago (this is just a rough estimate). I was sitting in my guild in Voralian City, sent my owl into the sky, and directly above me was a vulture. The vulture immediately attacked before the owl could recover from the movement lag of flying into the sky. I tried to release, but when movement lag was done, I got the message, "Your familiar is too far away to be released." Since I couldn't simply release it, I had to try to make it flee, but it was reengaged every time and died too fast to escape.

Either you're remembering a time when things worked differently, or else things have been changed again recently. I'm half tempted to start power ranking several conjurers until I get an owl and test it again.

nt

Can't release across continents etc

Basically you're say, "There's no problem with raven being weak because you should always know when there is someone around who might be able to attack it while it's in the sky, and therefore just avoid sending it up there anytime someone is around who could do that." There are several problems with this reasoning.

1.) It's akin to that old joke about the guy who goes to the doctor and says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this..." The doctor replies, "Then don't do that!" It makes for a great corny joke, but when applied practically, it's basically an answer that totally ignores the problem rather than trying to fix the problem (You tell An Immortal 'my familiar gets killed when I send it into the sky.' An Immortal tells you 'Then don't send it into the sky!').

2.) You can't always know when there's someone around who could attack your familiar in the sky. People are always rising into new forms and whatnot. Some people tend to power rank so fast that you didn't even know the character existed before they're in hero range with 1st tier predator forms, let alone whether they are going to be an enemy or not.

3.) Even if you know that someone is around who could attack your familiar in the sky, you're suggesting that the correct action to take at this point is to never send your familiar up so long as that high flying enemy is logged in. Well, I suppose that solves the dilemma of keeping your familiar safe, but now you run headlong into the exact problem I first stated with the weakness of raven (and even owl), namely, that raven (while grounded) only has detect hidden and nothing else, but quasit has detect hidden, sneak, hide, self-invis, regen boost to master. Which means, your argument of "don't have the familiar up there at those times" negates your other assertion that the raven is such a great scout because it can fly to search for people rapidly.

A familiar in the air with an enemy air shifter is a risk.

So is sitting at MS as an unshifted shifter with 3 axe spec villagers around.

The statement, know your risks and account for them in your decision making is a very valid point. If you want to reduce that risk you can also take the familiar edges to make them a bit beefier and you can zap them with some protective magic if you really want.

It is in fact possible for them to flee from final forms, I have been on both the conjurer and shifter side of that coin and more often then not the strategy of flee, go down, and release was effective.


An even bigger risk you haven't brought up is that of a necro with PWK, pretty much a 100% chance of insta kill on the fams.

But speaking from extensive experience from the shifter side, I manage to kill almost all high flying familiars that I engage in the air with eagle/falcon/vulture. I mention those forms specifically because they're pretty strong forms and I've personally used each of them for killing familiars. Horned Owl is pretty strong too, so I assume that would work well also. Once in a while a familiar manages to escape me up there, but not often. When I engage a familiar in the sky, unless it manages to flee successfully and the random direction happens to be down, it's most likely going to die. If the familiar flees any direction other than down, it will suffer a pretty good movement lag for moving through the sky, and my tier 1 predator form can move to follow it with much less lag. That means the familiar flees and eats 2 or 3 rounds of lag (I've never timed it to get an exact measure), while I immediately follow after it, suffer 1 round of lag, and then attack it again before it could be release. This means that in order for the familiar to survive, either I have to be slow about reengaging after the chase, or the familiar has to be lucky enough to flee down from the fight.

Ultimately, the point I was making initially (before this long side-tangent about the supposed "awesomeness" of a familiar which I find to be one of the worst familiar choices in the game) is that a few of the older familiars could afford to be tweaked upward just a little bit to bring them more on par with the newer familiars. Specifically, shadowcat and raven need tweaking the most, with owl and coyote next.

Aside from flying high, raven offers the conjurer nothing that isn't offered by quasit (detect hidden), and quasit has a great deal more to offer on top of that. So, in the scenario that's been belabored above, you have an enemy air shifter logged on, and suddenly your raven becomes a super gimpy quasit for the duration of the enemy player's session, or you run the very high risk of your raven meeting a horrible death at high altitude. If raven (and owl too) were given either more speed in the air so they actually have a chance to get away that isn't pure dumb luck, and/or possibly a higher dodge rate to boost their survivability slightly, it would go a long way.

Regarding shadowcat, the solution here seems very simple. Let shadowcat carry at least one item just like ALMOST every other familiar in the game (currently, only faerie dragon and shadowcat are incapable of carrying at least 1 item), and give it detect hidden. As it stands, neutral conjurers have no means of detecting hidden, while both good and evil conjurers have at least one option available (good has owl only, evil has both raven and quasit for detect hidden). If you give shadowcat these two things, no other change would really be necessary.

Regarding owl, I mention owl behind raven and shadowcat for two reasons only. First, owl is good's only option for detect hidden, which makes it desireable to some extent. Evil has two options for detect hidden, and quasit seems like a much superior choice for someone who's primarily interested in detect hidden. Second, owl has one ability that raven does not (IIRC). Anytime someone enters the room, owl will "turn to stare) at them, even if they are sneaking/creeping/whatever, thereby notifying everyone in the room that someone has just sneaked in who may or may not be a threat. This is a pretty useful ability as well. Given this, the only tweak that owl needs is a slight bump in survivability like increased dodging potential.

Coyote isn't terrible as it stands, but given the beefiness of its evil counterpart, the viper, when evil already had a good fighter familiar prior to viper's introduction, it doesn't seem too outlandish for coyote to get a small tweak upward in the combat department. This is especially true in consideration of the fact that a "coyote" is actually somewhat of a fierce creature, being a canine. Now, I know that among canines, coyotes are nowhere near as powerful as other types, even compared to many breeds of domestic dogs. But they're not pansies either. Maybe it doesn't need to be boosted in combat to be equal to faerie dragon, imp, or viper, but it should be boosted to be a bit more in combat than what it currently is.

I think you are really underselling how great having a flying familiar can be. I use tesserect more often than most healers use gate and it is really awesome to be able to prep up/conjure somewhere totally out of the way and then be able to insert myself just about anywhere in Thera I want to be instantly. The popularity of air shifters waxes and wanes and of course there are times that it wouldn't be a great idea to do that but that is usually only a small fraction of total game play time.

The shadowcat does detect hidden

coyote is a beast

the familiars are different flavors, while I would welcome adding a bit more exp to the detect hide familiars I don't think the balance is off that much.

At the end of the day a familiar is more of a flavor that can tip certain niche situations as opposed to an across the board game changer.

Learn something new every day. I always trashed it too, because I swear back in the day when conjurers first came out, it didn't have detect hidden. Was it added later?

I'm pretty sure I checked shadowcat for detect hidden when conjurers first went in and that it did not have it. Perhaps it was added later, or perhaps I remembered incorrectly. So in that respect, I stand correct.

So now, just let it carry one item like almost every other familiar in the game, and it'll be just peachy. As it stands, if you are forced to recall and live on a different continent from the one on which you stood before recalling, your shadowcat will be stranded on that continent until you can physically walk back there, since it cannot carry a boat. At least other familiars incapable of flying/swiming/non-breathing can be guided around to pick up a boat, then guided to the ocean and released. Poor little shadowcat gets stuck.

I've had bat which got torn apart by final forms if caught in the air. Hence I used it only when I wasn't threatened. And no one catches me by surprise when they rank into range because I can see who may be about to come into range and stay alert for it. That still gives you plenty of use.

You talk about imp being better than raven but before I played with an imp almost everyone deleted if they got it, and raven was the in thing for evils. Everyone said imp curse sucked when in fact you could get great mileage out of it, and great use out of it's tanking. But everyone wanted raven because of what it could, and still can, do.

They are excellent scouting familiars. Much more useful in upper ranks than lower.

Cat can hide so it can slink around following folks from a close distance and tesserect ing to a familiar for an ambush is priceless.

So you are essentially saying shadowcat and raven are not on the same level of abilities as all the other familiars?

There are a few ways to fix this:
1. Give shadowcat a detect of some sort. Give raven a slight boost to HP or add another scouting ability. I know I've splatted a few ravens in my day but I think it is meant to be low HP. More utility is better for that kind of familiar. I'm not saying it needs it because I rarely play neutral or evil conjurers. I have no idea what is balanced for conjurers. I do agree that people tend to shy away from those familiars or at least it seems that way.

2. Remove raven and shadowcat from the pool. - I don't think anyone likes this option unless they were replaced with something better.

3. Give an edge to change your familiar, a reroll. This would be similar to the shapeshifter edges. The purpose is to let you roll for one of the other four familiars in the pool (still random) but you will for sure get a different familiar. Essentially, if you get a familiar that you have tried a million times you can reroll and get something different--at a cost of edge points.

Note: It would probably need to tell you what your familiar is when you level up to 17, when you get the familiar. You would have to never use it to change it with the edge. This means that your chances of getting a familiar are 1/5 the first time and 1/4 the second time. It is a much better chance.

I find them to be a pretty good mix for different play styles. For example I would prefer the raven over all other evil familiars (it does have detect hidden).

You pay a hefty price for detect hidden (as you should, because it is awesome). I would never play a conjurer without detect hidden now. Relying on a familiar to get you by in combat means you are playing it wrong IMO.

Forget about PVP combat for a second...there's a nice little trick to familiars that I'm not sure how many people know about. If there's no PC in an area, spellcaster NPCs don't proc. So with a reasonably strong fighter familiar you can kill off spellcaster NPCs relatively safely even when they're way beyond your character level.

This makes fetching certain types of gear and wands especially in the midranks much easier. Essentially you visit the guy to spawn the wand, leave area, kill with familiar, have familiar bring item to you (with imp at least you could do that).

I've also had ones strong enough to kill off a demon/devil with assistance from my elemental.

Arguably, I don't know what I'm talking about since I played a grand total of one Conjie character, but am pretty sure I could've gotten more kills with a flying as opposed to a fighting familiar. (My quest familiar completely aside for this discussion.) Pre-quest fam I had imp. It could curse, it could fight, but the ability to scout would've been immensely more useful to find people. And air shifters are few and far between in your range, and if they do exist and are enemies (two big assumptions) don't fly for that period.

Shadowcat maybe, don't think I ever fought anyone with it (maybe for reasons you brought up,) but don't assume you know everything about it either. I occasionally find that imms have bumped something up (monkey forms come to mind) to bring more balance in.

BTW, even if your argument is completely valid, you're talking about 2/15 miss rate, which is fairly good all things considering. There were gnome warrior long-lived leaders fairly recently, after all. Not all things appeal to all people.