Personally I’m almost convinced that they are either:
a. Mantra’s: They do nothing unless charged and when charged gain X amount of stacks.
When pushing the button again they perform their active, like spray dots, deal damage, give out boons/restore health/endurance and after their stacks are spent they explode.
Traits could include a blowback/damage component to their destruction and since they’d count as mantras they are not bad AI that can be murdered.
Most of the boni of these drones would be selfish baseline but traits include their effects working like auras or party benefit.
b Signets, providing a passive bonus while not active and summoning a drone (either for a long time or a short burst for a shorter duration) giving boons, protection from or breaking cc, increasing damage and the like.
Traits then could make drone passive effects work while the drones are active, give boons on drone use, reduce cooldown and duration of effects.
Would be a boring choice over the mantra kind in my opinion though.
