CUEmu - Thread Posts

Madeiner

Wed Jun 09, 2004 7:54 am

Hi everyone

I am currently leveling rifleman and i'd need a pet or droid to tank for me.

I am no CH so i can only have lv 10 (maybe lv 12 if i keep novice CH) pets.

Do you think i should buy a BE lv 10 pet or a combat/defense droid to tank for me?

And, if i buy a pet, can you tell me what stats (ham, kin%, etc)should i look for and what is the common price for that (Chimaera)?

Please remember that i don't want my pet/droid to do damage, but only to tank effectively.

I also heard that droids don't need to be healed, and that would be a big advantage, i think

Thanks

Madeiner

NancyJ

Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:01 am

#2

...hmmm, as a BE would I recommend a BE pet or a droid? - thats a toughy

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XpNsVe

Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:05 am

#3

Pets are cute

Droids are dumb

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Akelan

Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:13 am

#4

The significant difference between a Droid and a Pet is healing. A pet can be healed in battle, using pet stims, so it does not require any specific skill, or medic stims if you have the skill. A pet can also be buffed through the use of specific foods.

Droids usually will do more damage than a non-CH pet, if the pet has been engineered as a tank. The pet, however, does not stop fighting between mobs if it runs out of power, and can be ressed from an incap. Mind can be restored through the trick commands, and the pet can also be used as a mount.

Balancing those two, I would select the Droid in PvP, and the Pet in PvE, unless you are fighting NPC opponents on missions, in which case they may pretty nearly be equal. Both have their strengths, and the one-size-fits-all approach ignores them both, and would not be a choice made by a clever player.

LLan

ArthurDentOnBria

Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:21 am

#5

yes bio engineers tend to make very poor tanks, lol.

ArthurDent - former Bio Engineer, Tailor, and Droid Engineer
Account cancelled 7/8/05 due to game breaking bugs in these professions that have been neglected for FAR too long. Last day July 27 2005
custom tailoring and droid orders welcome. "making Evil products since July 2003"
Achiever: 80%, Explorer: 60%, Socializer: 46%, Killa 13%

Akelan

Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:23 am

#6

Nah, BE's make adequate meatshields, at least after they have been beaten often enough by mutant rancors to toughen up their hides a little.

LLan

ArthurDentOnBria

Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:45 am

#7

I think maybe they've softened me up instead, I have to run like hell when I see a night spider these days, rofl.

Akelan wrote:

Nah, BE's make adequate meatshields, at least after they have been beaten often enough by mutant rancors to toughen up their hides a little.

LLan

ArthurDent - former Bio Engineer, Tailor, and Droid Engineer
Account cancelled 7/8/05 due to game breaking bugs in these professions that have been neglected for FAR too long. Last day July 27 2005
custom tailoring and droid orders welcome. "making Evil products since July 2003"
Achiever: 80%, Explorer: 60%, Socializer: 46%, Killa 13%

Akelan

Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:01 pm

#8

While it is true that droids are not succeptable to the special attacks, it is also conversely true that they cannot use them either, which eliminates a significant advantage. Giving up the poison and disease DoT's, and the intimidate, dizzy and stun attacks would be a definite trade-off for the immunity to those attacks, especially since I can direct those attacks use, where the mobs use them at random.

Pets "heal themselves" as well, but much more slowly than a droid with a repair module. That repair module is also a trade-off for damage modules I believe (I don't think it can be used instead of an armor module). In general, a non-CH pet is a tank, with its health advantage balanced off by the reduction in damage. I am not sure of the maximum resistance available to a droid, so I do not know if they can be configured to the 60% kinetic resist that pets can, at present, be engineered to have. I do know that the current droids are lower in health than the higher stat non-CH pet, though this will be changing at someas-yet-unspecified future date. Using the droid repair kits does equate to using stims; I generally alternate between the medic stims with which I can heal 2000 or more, and the pet stims, which routinely heal 1100 of all three stats, since I find the health stat to take the most damage during PvE with the pets. My BE-Enhanced clothing and foods enable me to be more efficient in healing with the medical stims, so this is a unique advantage, as well as making it much easier to keep a pet healed against a high-damage mob, since I am not limited to the timer on the pet stims.

Mount issues aside, each has their strengths. Currently I can put more non-CH usable health, and heal more effectively on a pet, than I can with a droid, but I can field more damage capacity with the droid than with the non-CH pet that is best suited to the task of tanking for a ranged combat player. The droid can be configured for resists to the PvP and Mission NPC damage types more easily, and is well suited to that type of combat, in preference to most non-CH level pets.

I still suggest that the two each are useful tools in the right situation, and I would prefer being able to field the one best suited for the particular opponent to concentrating too heavily on one or the other.

(BTW, I am also an MCH and MBE, so I have some experience in using both as well, and have been using droids in conjunction with pets since my first pre-nerf 3K health probots. I'm also a marksman at Pistols 4, so I back up either or both with my faithful republic or FWG5's and know the value of a good tank.)

LLan

Betatoxin

Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:24 am

#9

Akelan wrote:
The significant difference between a Droid and a Pet is healing. A pet can be healed in battle, using pet stims, so it does not require any specific skill, or medic stims if you have the skill. A pet can also be buffed through the use of specific foods.
Droids usually will do more damage than a non-CH pet, if the pet has been engineered as a tank. The pet, however, does not stop fighting between mobs if it runs out of power, and can be ressed from an incap. Mind can be restored through the trick commands, and the pet can also be used as a mount.

Many of your points are incorrect or out of date.

A droid can be healed in battle with droid repair kits. The ones I use repair 1600+ damage. Droid repair kits require no specific skill.

It is true you cannot buff a droid. However the droid is immune to special effects like poison and posture changes. From personal experience this is very valuable in reducing the amount of healing/repairing your tank requires. I find a droid more economical as a result when fighting creatures that posion for example.

As far as a droid doing more damage, that is completely dependent on the droid. A lot of things have changed since the droid revamp. There is not just probots anymore. I use an R3 droid with 5 repair and 1 combat. Not only can I heal this droid in combat he heals himself. No BE pet can do that. While the R3 repair/combat droid does little damage a self healing 4000+ HAM tank is a nice to have along. Also if you are leveling low damage is usually what you want so you get as much XP as possible.

A droid will stop fighting if it runs out of power, something you have to watch. But then pets require healing after pretty much every fight or they will get incapped. I just get into the habit of recharging my droid periodically in the same way I am used to healing pets after every engagement.

A droid can be brought out of an incap with the same repair kit that you can fix it with. As far as I can tell the repair kit heals all HAM bars and so does the droids own repair function.

It is true is that you need a DE to repair droid wounds, a pet can just be fed and played with.

My recommendation would be to get both a CL10 BE pet and a droid so that you have some flexibility for different situations. Sometimes it might be useful to have some pets with specials, other times the self repair of the droid might be more valuable. It also depends on your personal play style. Functionally though I do not think one is clearly better than the other.

As far as my personal background. I have a MCH, MBE and a MDE amoung other masteries.

Message Edited by Betatoxin on 06-09-2004 12:25 PM

Enoshima

Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:25 am

#10

Actually I would use a droid simply for the fact that they are just irritating, please take one of the green ones.

Using a Bio-Engineer might be more fun just because they scream really loud when being chased by Gaping Spiders.

Use a BE pet, I have a droid, and a pet for the same purpose. I always use the pet for some reason.

Hon Atsugi
Elder Ranger / Ace Alliance Pilot
Ranger, more of lifestyle than a profession.
August 3, 2003 - ?????
Waiting for Ashra's return.........

GMANHNC

Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:38 am

#11

Well I can't tell you that there are these special Rancors or other anomolies cause they are "BAD" so I would agree that you should get one of each and see for yourself... as always I reccomend one with Blind and Intimidate, as this will significantly reduce the amount of healing you will need to do.

GMAN
I moved to Corellia I have no vendor and I don't know the coords to my house, but it doesn't really matter cause all my pets are in the tool box, I may have some in space, but that doesn't really concern you either.

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