Swiftwind's Blog

One of the things that I've always appreciated about SWG is it clear and concise user tutorials... I mean it's amazing, in a mere 13 months I learned how to use my droids! (file under :Sarcasm)

Over the last week or so I've had a real revelation about droids, and I really owe all it to Mr Bubbles. It was either at the last party, or when it was being setup, that I noticed Mr B sending out his droid to take out a couple banthas. I'd always like the idea of droids in the game, but I never really could figure out what to do with them... and I'd certainly never attacked anything with them. For laughs called my droid out and sent him after one of the banthas. The banthas in the area were in the CL25-30 range and as Mr B is lucky enough to have of the coveted high CL droids I wasn't surprised to see his droid dropping banthas very rapidly, but as my droid was only CL 30 I figured it would either be a much longer fight or that he'd get his metal butt kicked... and I really wasn't sure what that would mean for my droid. So, off I sent him, and with in seconds, the bantha was on the ground! I was really amazed, the droid took the bantha down as fast as I could of at CL 76. I thought it might have been a fluke so I tried it a number of time... and the same thing happened ever time: Droid went out, bantha went right down.... “Hmm, this warrants further investigation” I though.

A few days ago, I was Grinding spiders on Yavin 4 for the XP when I though that I would do some experimentation with my droid and see what he was capable of. I'd never used droids much in the game, in fact I was in the game 8 months before I figured out how to even program them, so I wasn't sure what was going to happen if I sent him out to attack things... would he become badly damaged and be “disabled” like speeders?... a sparking, smoking lump of metal the just sits there and makes little explosions once and a while?... or would it just blow up and vanish from my inventory? I'd had the droid pretty much since I started my toon on Valcyn... picked him up in a vendor raid, with is another fun topic I'll have to talk about some time... and I'd gotten rather attached to the stupid beeping lump, so I decided to start out small and see what he could do before I risked sending him to any “droid heaven” that might exist in the game.

Test one: The Nest

I thought a good first test would been the nest from a creature spawn point. They always take me a couple minutes of firing to bring down so it seemed that it would be a good indication of the droid's attack power. As the droid is half the combat level of my best weapon, I thought that it would probably take him something around 1.5 to 2 times the time for him to knock down the nest as it would for me. After I cleared out the CL 83 NPC's from the spawn point (to point they're not respawing) so that is was safe to send the droid in, I commanded him to attack the nest. Well, off the droid went and to my amazement, he brought down the nest in under 30 seconds. I was amazed, while the droid was only CL 30, he more them makes up for it with an amazing DPS (Damage per Second) potential... in fact he was doing several time MORE DPS than ANY of my weapons.

Test Two: CL 30 Droid VS CL 83 Spider

The next test was to see how well the droid did on his own against a much higher CL opponent. I was fairly certain that the droid would be disabled or destroyed fairly quickly, but this was to test both how much damage he could do and take, and what would happen to him when he lost a fight. I really didn't know what would happen if the droid's health reached 0... would he need repairs? would he be permanently destroyed? I had to find out, so I reluctantly sent the little droid out after a CL 83 spider.

The fight went pretty much as I'd predicted, the droid did some damage, but was quickly dispatched by the much higher level NPC, so the only question left was about the damage the droid sustained in loosing. When I opened the datapad and examined the droid he looked in good condition – no damage listed, he hadn't lost battery power. I then called him as the final check and when he came up, the only thing that was different was that his health was empty but it was building back up... Hmmm interesting.

Test Three: Droid as Combat Support

In the second test I'd established that the droid would not take any permanent damage as a result of combat and that while it has a high DPS rating that it's not very effective by itself against higher level NPC's. The last question I had was how it would fair as an “assistant” in combat. I'd expected similar results to the solo test and the would take out the droid fairly quickly, and that itwould only have time to inflict limited damage. My plan was simple, When I found a suitable CL 83 NPC I lauched an attack, the after a few seconds call in the droid to assist. I wanted a easy and fast way to call the droid into attacking, so I created a simple attack macro and put it up on the button bar and it ended up working rather well.

Much to my surprise, the NPC spent most it's agro against me and barely damaged the droid, which gave to droid, with it's high DPS rating, opportunity to inflict massive damage to the NPC. The droid assist significantly dropped the kill time

The Results

1. Droids have very HIGH DPS ratings

2. The droid can take easly take on NPC around it's level , by itself, the droid can not last long enough to do significant damage to a high level NPC's
3. Droids do not sustain damage during combat, and are only temporarily disabled.
4. Droids do not cause hostile NPC's to agro against it or it's owner unless it attacks first.
5. Droids can attack NPC spawn points like nests or lairs without drawing agro to itself or it's owner from the “protecting” NPC's. they completely ignore it and at worst will attempt to “heal” the spawn point.
6. When used after an attack against a NPC is initiated, the NPC tends to focus the bulk of it's attack on the first attacker, and generally only lightly damages the droid, giving it time to deliver massive damage.

The Revelation

God, I'd wish I realized this sooner... It' s so obvious... it's got to be a throw back to the original SWG MMORPG! Somewhere in the original design of the game, back when it was an real RPG, someone must of recognized that droids played a huge part in the “Star Wars Experience” and that they should have major assistive role in the game.... but like so(e) much of the game, the good ideas seems to have gotten lost

While everyone and his brother has been complaining about “too many Jedi” , all the NGE issues, and dealing with the game becoming PvP based, the role of Droids in Star War has gotten over looked. Droids are EVERYWERE in the films, expecially in the prequils, and should be as big a part of the game as Jedi, the Empire, or the Rebellion... they work side by side with the sentient being of the galaxy, they are major player it the conflict... yet now they're appear to be in the game in such a superficial way!

Yet remnants still remain... some that SOE hasn't gotten around to destroying yet ... My Little CL 30 droid has a higher DPS then ANY of my weapons... Alone he's easy to destroy, when we work together, we kick serious ass!!! If I'd known just how much help this little droid could be, I'd of reached CL 90 months ago!

As a result, I've developed a new play strategy, I go nowhere without my droid! I bought at least 100 recharges worth of batteries! With new combat toon I create, one of the first things they get is a combat droid!  I've notice a couple other interesting aspects of droids that I'll be experimenting on with what's left of my crafter... God I hope SOE doesn't “improve” them out of the game before I have a chance to find them!

(See the message forums for further discusion)