An idea that keeps the shadow drones while making the shadow affinity more like its past self

[LavenderLillie]

Currently, much of the discourse around the shadow affinity seems to be that the shadow drones are less responsive and powerful than the previous variation of the affinity, with grabber drones being clunkier than the hands and exploitators both being weaker damage-wise and single-target. Instead of the current drone system we have, I suggest combining the current effects of the drones with facets of the old effects to utilize the theming of the drones while still making the affinity feel around as powerful as its initial implementation.

Grabber Drones
Grabber drones currently work like craftable Polly Rogers that can be made once a nightmare fuel is inserted into the chassis. Instead of the drones themselves picking up objects, what if instead they would pick a specific item to target (preferably an item WX has in their inventory or is picking up), dig into the ground, and release shadows (like WX used to do) to collect as much of that item as it can? Once it was either at a full stack or the player stopped collecting items, the drones would bring the items back to WX. They could also have a dynamic cap with nightmare fuel and pure horror+, with nightmare fuel capping you at two and pure horror or stronger making them uncapped (or at something like 10 so players can't intentionally lag the server by crafting billions of drones).

Exploitator Drones
Currently, these drones will scan an enemy and apply a physical defense debuff to whatever enemy they're targeting. This allows you to make up to 3/4 drones and apply a single-target debuff of up to 18%/24% depending on whether you have a unpossessed or possessed atrium implanted. However, I think it would feel more thematic for the shadow's theme of "puppeting" enemies if the drones would dig into a single enemy and apply a defense debuff that way. With a regular shadow atrium implanted, you could craft up to 2/3 of these drones, and they would attatch to enemies and apply a 25% defense debuff to whatever they're attatched to, though each drone could only attatch to one at a time. Once you implant a possessed atrium, these drones would become uncapped much like the grabbers (or some high cap like 10, again to prevent lag). This would fit better thematically and be a fair balance between higher potential damage as well as allowing for pseudo-AoE with multiple drones, while still making the upgraded atrium feel meaningful.
Edit: perhaps when the possessed atrium is implanted, these drones could even apply a planar defense debuff, even going as far as to strip planar entity protection from enemies that have it?

Edited Tuesday at 02:44 AM by LavenderLillie
Edited for more clear language on the Grabber Drone section.

[doritosdamafia]

15 minutes ago, LavenderLillie said:

Grabber Drones
Grabber drones currently work like craftable Polly Rogers that can be made once a nightmare fuel is inserted into the chassis. Instead of the drones themselves picking up objects, what if instead they would pick a specific item to target (preferably an item WX has in their inventory or is picking up), dig into the ground, and release shadows (like WX used to do) to collect as much of that item as it can? Once it was either at a full stack or the player stopped collecting items, the drones would bring the items back to WX. They could also have a dynamic cap with nightmare fuel and pure horror+, with nightmare fuel capping you at two and pure horror or stronger making them uncapped (or at something like 10 so players can't intentionally lag the server by crafting billions of drones).

one idea i have seen to the pick drones is that they are a range increaser for the character to picks things, so instead of wx walking to pick the item, the drines would go pick in it's place, so wx will only need to walk until the item is the drone range otherwise

[LavenderLillie]

1 hour ago, doritosdamafia said:

one idea i have seen to the pick drones is that they are a range increaser for the character to picks things,

I wish this was the tinkering ability for Rangebooster, personally.