In our party of a mystic, a technomancer, an operative (ranged small arms), and a solarian, I'm trying to figure out the best way to build my Mechanic.
I'm planning on playing a human and taking long arm proficiency, focus, and specialization by level 3 because no one else in the party will have long arm proficiency.
So what do I do with my drone? Combat chassis and have him take long/heavy Prof? Stealth and stick with small arms?
In particular, has anyone tried a Melee Drone build using advanced melee weapons on the combat chassis? With no reaction I'm not sure how effective a melee combat drone will be. Or is that just the perfect situation for a doshko?
If your going to take longarm proficiency and specialization is there any reason you are not going with the exocortex? you'd get both and a skill focus... not saying you're doing it wrong, I'm just wondering your reasoning, especially if you don't have a strong plan for your drone in mind already.
I have a whole drone character and relationship with the mechanic layed out already, and long before I heard of the exocortex, the notion of a robot sidekick is what drew me to the class.
Mechanically, I really like the idea of having a drone with a high damage weapon and a mechanic with high INT who uses the overload ability or computer-feint (at higher levels) pretty regularly rather than focusing on damage.
Fair enough. Well I haven't tried anything yet technically, (still waiting for my first session this weekend) but from what I've seen and hear on the forums I'd note a couple of things.
Melee seems to be pretty tough for PCs at low levels, but becomes more viable as their durability increases and various class benefits come online at higher levels. It also seems to be a high risk high reward play style. You deal lots of damage, bu t you take lots of hits too.
A drone can only be healed 10% every 10 minute unless you have one of the mechanic tricks that increases this to 25%. Not you can completely rebuild with 24hrs uninterrupted effort, but that may be hard to come by. Each interruption adds another 12 hours so it could mean a very long time to rebuild if you don't have some downtime.
I can see these two issues interacting in such a way that a melee drone is great for a single combat, but decommissioned for a while after. Depending on passing (how frequently combat encounter occur without downtime in between) I can see this meaning you give up your biggest asset in a single (if glorious) hurrah...
Again I'd like to reiterate however that this is theorycraft on my part.
I haven't looked at making a drone mechanic but now I want to recreate Gaige from Borderlands 2.
Well I'm going to go for a melee build. I'll let you know how it works out. The real beauty of the drone is a free total rebuild at every level. So if the boy gets aced I only have to limp through the rest of level 1 to rework him with heavy weapons.
Something I've mentioned on a different thread is having a combat drone focused on combat maneuvers such as disarm or dirty trick. It can take the CM feat.
Then give it a weapon arm for a taclash. The reach will allow it to stay slightly behind your Solarian while providing good functionality.
Yup the plus side if you don't like how its working get a level and change it up. So you are not risking a ton by trying stuff. And frankly the drone getting shot up in melee is fire the rest of your group is not taking.
If you want to do it though your first mechanic trick probably should be the repair one. If every rest break the party is doing you give it 25% of its health back should still stay reasonably usable through encounters.
Also ask the technomancer if he could take a few of the construct-repairing spells.