Summon Elemental

Spell effects
Summon Elemental summons a Dormant Elemental into the world at the position 3 distance away from the wizard in the direction the wizard is facing on firm ground. The Dormant Elemental is an inactive Elemental and does not move or attack and has 1 hp. It does not have collision enabled and other units may walk through the Dormant Elemental.

The Dormant Elemental will remain inactive until it suffers an attack by at least one of these eight elements: Arcane, Cold, Poison, Fire, Life, Water, Steam and Lightning. The Dormant elemental will then become active as an Elemental of the element that attacked it. For example, attacking the Dormant elemental with any fire damage will cause it to hatch into a Fire Elemental. If the Dormant Elemental is attacked by damage that consists of more than 1 element type, the element that caused the most damage will be chosen. The Dormant Elemental will not become active by any other means. Since the Dormant Elementals have no collision, they are immune to directional shields and shield bubbles (will not get pushed by them). Earth and ice projectiles pass through Dormant Elementals harmlessly, and these two element types are ignored by Dormant Elementals.

A maximum of 20 Dormant Elementals can be present at any time, summoning more will cause the oldest one to despawn. Elementals that have hatched become minions of the summoning wizard and will attack his enemies. Minions do not move unless there are enemies in the area (they detect enemies about 1 screen away) and they do not carry between areas. Each wizard may only have 16 minions active at any time, if the wizard hatches more Elementals, the earliest of the 16 minions will self-destruct. Minions last indefinitely until their death.

Casting Nullify will destroy all summoned Dormant Elementals and Elementals (including those of allies).

Thunder Bolt Magick is also considered a lightning spell and it can wake Dormant Elementals as Lightning Elementals.

Pros

 * Elemental provide protection from enemies, allowing the caster to cast other spells.
 * Extremely useful Magick when used in Challenge Arenas because you don't need to go anywhere - the elementals will always be close to enemies. This Magick can win for you a whole arena! You only need to keep yourself alive, keep the elementals at full numbers and health and help them with some element-immune foes.
 * Elementals can be extremely durable. They have high amounts of health and can be healed very effectively by some high damage spells. This means a wizard can give to his summons big amounts of healing and kill enemies at the same time! Different resistances and absorptions allow elementals to be invincible when they fight some element-attacking enemies. Also, every type of elemental is immune to all status effects.
 * You can select type of your elementals by using a proper element to wake them. If you know what elements do your enemies use, this can make your elementals immortal.
 * Elementals deal good damage (especially against enemies weak to some element) and are as fast as wizards.
 * Elementals are strong, but they can still be as numerous as other minions.

Cons

 * Summoned Elementals can be destroyed by Nullify.
 * Dormant Elementals exposed to Rain/Thunder Storm, Blizzard and element-attacking enemies are quickly changed into some element, usually not the one you wanted them to be.
 * They are much slower to summon than zombies by Raise Dead as they are summoned one by one.
 * If you choose a wrong elemental type, your spells can hurt elementals even more than they hurt enemies. Also some enemies can accidentally kill them quickly (like Disciples with their Water Bolt, normally used only to wet opponents, and lightning elementals)

More info
If you want to know all about different types of elementals as well as their strengths and weaknesses, go to article about Elementals.