ScarySai

That's basically what it was, I don't remember what the limit for it was, though. I'd like to see it get the leadership treatment and have it's activation shortened, personally. Honestly, that and suppression would be enough for me in 90% of situations, especially if single target got looked at.

I really liked the original idea that was documented regarding the photon seekers. It was basically orbiting death on steroids. I get why it never made it in back then, but right now it'd be pretty badass. Essences need something for sure, though. Even my various masterminds' T1 pets can handle +4 minions better than my shade pets can. All it takes is a single stray that isn't being targeted by them to destroy my army, and no matter how well I play and how much I alter my playstyle to help them survive, there's always one stray that hits them. Coincidentally, this is usually when my gravatic emanation decides to miss everything I want to hit with it.

Hopefully. I had an idea for the essences as well I'd like to throw out there - on the off chance that for whatever reason we never get the AI, Dwarf Taunt or more robust pets - suppose they exploded very violently when killed, doing damage on par with an unchain? I'd prefer the pets live longer and just not die that often, but figured I'd throw the idea out there on the off chance those ideas aren't considered for whatever reason.

How do I like a post a hundred times? Pretty much nailed it on all counts. IIRC, Powerhouse said at some point that orbiting death wouldn't be considered for suppression because it turns off when stunned? Personally don't see the reason in that, let the warshade worry about that.

Eclipse, then laugh in their face as you drain their soul. Light form, then laugh in their face as you punch them repeatedly in the spine. Before that, leverage your stun/gravity well/dwarf as a warshade, or knockdowns/dwarf/heals as a peacebringer. Inspirations are your friend.

My fire/mental solos GMs just fine. It used to be even faster before the drain psyche nerf. I could see Beam rifle pulling it off as well, due to it's -regen and massive single target damage.

I forgot about that change in my absence, so yeah - disregard that bit. Still, beam seems right up the OP's alley.

I know what toe bombing is. Problem is using your nuke, or a standard AOE blast would be better and more consistent when paired with trip mine, so your logic still works. My nuke + trip mine, or my main AOE + trip mine. Not only does it do more damage, it's something I can do on every pull, as opposed to twice a mission.

Personally, would like to see munitions get a lot of offensive buffs that make it an offensive powerhouse, making up for it's lackluster defense. LRM getting a massive CD reduction in line with other nukes would be pretty rad, cryo ray getting some more damage/slow baked in, sleep grenade becoming a rain-like gas grenade instead. Just a lot of fun toys in line with the theme.

Knock yourself out, I prefer to keep things simple, especially when others have provided the data already. xD

Anyway, a few notes. 1: Caltrops, Field Operative and trip mine carry the set. 2: Gun drone is a good set mule, but since they added a taunt to it, it's already low value has diminished considerably. Keep it for bonuses if you can, but if something has to go to fit something else, it's gun drone. 3: Time bomb is in the running for one of the worst powers in the game. Two trip mines will outdamage it, don't bother with it. 4: Proc caltrops out, it's proc rate leads to some fun random bursts of damage. It's not interruptable anymore. Furthermore, following your own logic - in the time it takes time bomb to go off, you could have fired off 2-3 AoEs that all would likely do more damage than the bomb individually. Time bomb is an awful power.

Beam rifle has a +range buff built into it's snipe and a strong single target focus, but it's still pretty decent AoE when properly utilized. For secondaries, I'd suggest /TA, /Devices or /Time for your purposes.

I'm against the placate for the same reason I'm against survival change: It's another consideration that might prevent the drone from getting the offensive buff I think it needs more. Removing the taunt would already boost it's survivability substantially in groups - before the taunt was added, in a group I rarely had problems with it, due to the many different targets that could draw aggro other than me and the drone(s), plus the team buffs that would bolster it's survival just by being there. And I agree - which is why I called it worthless, Red.

Then change Time Bomb into the distraction and make gun drone the damaging one. Trip mine is awesome, time bomb is one of the most worthless powers in the game, gun drone had its uses before the taunt change. Outside of procced caltrops and tripmine, which hits slightly harder than most other blaster pbaoes - the set really isn't packing damage on the level of say, /fire, /mental, /time, /atomic or /elec.

While we're at it, lets add a difficulty that's just makes every enemy a randomly generated AV, would make +4x8 real fun. >_>

@Tath99I don't disagree with the idea of making it more survivable, but trying to think about this from CP's perspective, he would likely want it to either A: Double down on the taunt and make the drone more resilent, or B - my personal preference: Keep it squishy, but lose the taunt and make it much more of a damaging pet. Making it both tankier AND better at it's intended job of shooting things super good, doesn't strike me as something he would do. Furthermore, my /devices blasters thus far have been perfectly capable of surviving most encounters, so I'd rather have the extra damage. I am also of the opinion that the taunt cannot be compromised with, it has to go. Doubling down on that would be an act of stubborn pride rather than intelligent design.

I find BU to be generally more valuable in every situation, perhaps the drone would perform better over a longer fight on a low-recharge/non-IO build, or if the out of combat time was shorter, but as it is, rotating aim and build up off CD just outperforms it in most situations that I've seen. Bugged targeting drone was a pretty fun time though, lol. It's nice for the snipe damage scaling on a really tight build, I'll give it that. I will agree, however. Devices certainly has some budget to go around, I disagree with CP saying it has 'too much damage' already, when the set's only claims to doing damage are trip mine, and proctrops - the latter of which is probably going to get hit hard by a future ppm nerf. /Devices is a great set held back by having way more useless powers than it should. Time bomb still sucks, gun drone is now effectively worthless for anything not involving muling ER, and trip mine/caltrops are effectively so good that they carry the set.

You lost me, bud. As established many times already, this power has not, is not, nor will ever be an effective 'tank'. It should do it's job as a gun drone and shoot things good. I personally like @Sakura Tenshi's ideas, as they fall more lin line with what a DPS pet should be capable of. The set sacrifices build up, I think the drone doing decent damage isn't asking too much. Regardless, at the bare minimum, the taunt is the thing that needs to go. Compromise isn't the call here, the idea is bad.

Checking in after a bit of absence. Everything seems fine so far, but there's one part I want to focus on, as this bugs the hell out of me on the MMs. This is great and I love it, is there a chance this can be extended to call to arms as well? It still shows up in base defense. (Pic in spoiler)

Folds for the fold gods!

Since I see it was fixed with edict, the Call to Arms defense aura also displays weirdly under base defense, rather than all types/positionals.

Oh, I like that, then. I edited the question because I re-read it and wasn't exactly sure if it meant this, or was forcing default redraw with conditions to make it less awful. As you describe it, I'm all for it. Look forward to testing it. Seconding this getting rolled to VEATS.

I won't be able to test until tomorrow, so I just have one question based entirely on what I'm reading here. Is the default setup "no redraw" and the animation plays under these conditions, or is the default setting the regular redraw, but it only triggers under these conditions? Is this No redraw with style, or a slightly more tolerable old redraw? Edit: Re-reading the post, I realize now this was a stupid question. Ignore me!

I'm going to try and be a bit more optimistic despite my doubts and misgivings, though I won't exactly be happy if it ends up being a problem and goes unresolved for months - I'll wait for the what-if to happen before worrying too much about it. P.S: Remove taunt from gun drone, please.

Most people on the old boards weren't running IO builds, much less purple/pvp min/maxed ones. There was also a fair share of frankly clueless people, among which were usually the types to make those threads. Now a maxed build is much more obtainable and information is much easier to get. It doesn't surprise me at all that people aren't the same as back then, mostly.