Gun Drone in /Devices - am I mistaken or does this not suck?

This is the ultimate power in Devices? It takes forever to summon, is interrupted if a gnat sneezes at you, it's damage output is negligible, it sticks around long enough for one group and then POOF! it's gone, and the endurance cost is nearly 40 points! Every time I make the mistake of pulling out my 50 AR/Dev blaster, I get angry. It shouldn't be this way - It should be a joy, an addictive experience, something that one looks forward to rather than dreads. All but for one power.

This has got to be one of the most disappointing teases in any secondary I have ever played. The fact that it comes right after Time Bomb is probably the reason I feel so cheated - an insultingly useless tier 8 power preceding an insultingly useless tier 9 is like rubbing salt in a wound.

Gun drone is ok. Great place for a recharge instensive pet set for 6.25 recharge.

I have them both and, having learned how to use them well, quite like them.

A pal of mine has a dp/device and all i can say is the drone is sweet. On his toon he can have two out (for 30 secs with haste on). Time bomb from what I can see works well on low dps teams or when a huge mob or two gets pull together. Then again its just my opinion on those two powers

My Sonic/Devices has Gun Drone, and I usually just pull it out for EB/AV fights. It's damage is very nice when it is being buffed by the -res in my attacks, and only has one target to shoot at.

My only real complaint is it's targeting priority sucks. If there is an AV and a lowly minion, it will almost always choose to shoot the minion when I need the extra damage on the AV.

It also gives a HUGE defiance boost when you summon it.

GD isn't the greatest thing...but for me it's had it's uses. I've only ever had one /dev blaster and that was an elec/dev, so droney was paired up with Volty. They were a pretty handy combo when i nuked a spawn and end crashed...they just kept right on dealing a bit of damage for me till i could start shooting again myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.

I don't mind Gun Drone. It's pet damage, which means you don't have to be paying attention to have it effective. I do think the casting time could be lowered by several seconds, but it deals about 840 damage over 90 seconds unbuffed, which does a lot to hinder AV regen.

It's basically like a long-term nuke where the "crash" is the long cast time.

That and Gun drones appear to take any damage buff that's on you and apply it to the drones. Defiance included. If you summon a second drone it'll get the damage bonus the first is giving you and hit that much harder.

Granted I've only tested this with red insps and defiance, but it's reasonable to assume it'll work for most any damage buff given game mechanics. Just need to find a kin or emp to borrow for a few minutes.

With you on casting time though, it needs to be more like FFG in traps. Other then that gun drone's quite the handy power and not useless to me at all.

Maybe if Gun Drone was as fast and uninterruptable to summon as the Auto Turret Maltas get, then I'd use it. Until then, however, no thanks.

EDIT: Oh, and it'd need a movement speed buff as well. It was far too slow even without Inherent Swift...

Auto Turret is fast, yes, but it can be interrupted. You just have to hit the Engineer immediately, and if the entire spawn is Engineers (not unusual at 0/x1), that can be tricky.

I don't mind GD although I don't call it up on a regular basis... like others have said I pull him out for the defiance boost before I hit EB's or multiple bosses in a spawn.

I also like using him as a mini tank for EB's; call him up then using Cloak and SS whip over to the far side of the mob and watch him obediently take the alpha for me

I LOVE my lvl 50 AR/device...one thing i would change is the fact that gun drone doesnt last so long for its cast time and end cost. but on the good side it does give a 33% damage boost after cast for i think around 10s.

I sometimes use mine to double my survivability as well as for the dam increase. It is worth the end cost to me, the rest of the build needs to be able to not suffer from the end cost is all and so I slotted for it.

As said, the main use for it is as a distraction/mini tank, a Blaster with a good distraction can be devastating.. But I also agree that it needs to be faster. Faster animation, longer lasting, but make the recharge longer to compensate. As it is, if you're running a high recharge build, it's possible to have two or three out at once (yes, they do stack) which while useful is still a lot of time for summoning and trying to manage endurance.

I've got an Energy/Devices and a Fire/Devices high enough to use GD and only the Energy has it, only reserving for Boss/EB/AV fights. Any less and it's not worth it and GM fights last too long that it's boring having to resummon five or more times in the fight.

I feel that it does take too long to summon and that it does take way too much end. As for the 6.25% rech mentioned in one reply... this is a blaster we're talking about. Posi's and Deci's all have the same bonus...remember the rule of 5. Anyhow I feel that the dmg it does is pretty decent. It can also serve to take some of the heat off of you if you're solo or on a small team. If only it did have the two problems I mentioned before then it wouldn't be bad at all. Cut the summoning time and end cost in half and it would be a step in the right direction of "fixing" /dev.

Oh also I can see that this is an old post but I don't believe that the drone can be summoned more than once now. Even if the recharge is up and I summon another the existing one explodes.