Drones and Golems (Summons) - August 10, 2015

Daily posting, on the topic of Drones and Golems.

Drones and Golems are temporary allies that can be created by your party. Drones simply need to have their command activated (and the user cannot have one of their own of the current Drone type being summoned in play), but Golems can only be summoned by laying down a Symbiote Cloud and using Summon Golem (though more than one Golem can be put in play by any user). The maximum number of Drones and Golems that can be in play at once is 32 total.

Drones come in many flavours: Assault, for attacking a short distance away. Defense, for healing nearby allies. Ammo, for refilling ammo. Each of these Drone types (depending on the character) can be powered up in terms of magnitude, area of effect, speed and usage (number of times summoned). These bonuses are only present if the Drone's creator is still in play (HP not at 0).

Noah, Hayley and custom main characters with the Engineer class have the Omni Drone Extreme, which creates a powerful Drone that combines all 3 Drone types to a much more powerful degree. Any boosts to Assault, Defense or Ammo Drones will power up the Omni Drone's respective abilities.

Golems are high-defense melee summons. They do not have the versatility or potential speed of Drones, and their base attack is lower than Assault Drones (50 as opposed to the Assault Drones' 100). What they do have, however, is longevity and strength in numbers (provided you get every summoner on your team to summon all the Golems they can). Short to medium range enemies heading towards you? Hide behind your swarm of 6-10 charging Golems and let them handle it. With their high durability and numbers, Golems are a godsend in the very early game, especially on Impossible Difficulty, and can provide a very nice safety net.

Golems, being Symbiote Monsters, do have the 10x Fire weakness their brethren share. While enemies with Flamethrowers may be a problem for one Golem, several Golems ganging up on a Sanguine (which counters all attacks by unleashing Fire damage to an area around it at melee range) will likely wipe out a Golem army. Either make sure you take out any Sanguines for your Golems, hit it with a Glacier (to take away its Fire Counter) or avoid summoning all Golems at once.

Golems can be powered up, but like Drones, their bonuses fade away if their summoner is killed. Golems can gain increases in power, defense and uses. Other abilities include Regeneration, where the user regenerates HP if any Golem is in play. Bismuth Alloy is a new Golem ability which gives Golems a different texture and takes away their Fire weakness.

Calling of Earth is a powerful Golem ability that only activates while the summmoner is alive and has 25% or less HP: All Golems deal 10x damage. With a Golem specialist like Erica, who by endgame can summon 11 Golems and boost her Golems' damage by 2500%, would be have each Golem deal 13000 apiece if Calling of Earth is triggered, totalling to 143000 points of damage from her own Golems (though engineering this scenario is a bit tricky for big fights or dungeon-less battles where Clouds and Golems must be placed and summoned one at a time mid-battle).