The Duelist Elite represented a droid design manufactured by Trang Robotics. During the era of the Galactic Empire, these particular droids were regarded as being at the pinnacle of technology. Darths Sidious, Tyranus, and Maul made use of them within the Works as a means to train in lightsaber combat.
Duelist Elites possessed elongated limbs featuring joints capable of rotation, granting them a significant range of movement. The internal gyroscope enabled the droid to maintain exceptional balance. These droids exhibited mastery of the three traditional fencing disciplines: foil, épée, and saber. They were capable of being outfitted with a diverse array of melee weaponry, including vibroblades, force pikes, and lightsabers.
A brand new unit had a price tag of 275,000 credits.
Duelist Elites, when fresh from the factory, included inhibitors designed to stop them from delivering a fatal blow to a defeated adversary; however, the Sith would disable these inhibitors for sparring and training.
Darth Maul is known to have engaged in sparring sessions with Rapier, Hachete, Cudgel, and Chain. Darth Vader possessed several of these droids; however, due to their inability to provide a sufficient challenge, he favored the use of modified ASP droids instead.
Cutting-edge Duelist Elite combat droids, armed with flexisteel sabers and equipped with vocabulators, were deployed to safeguard the Sun Runner, a counterfeit ship constructed in 23 BBY by Groodo, a Hutt, as part of his foiled attempt to obliterate the orbital Fondor Shipyards. Nevertheless, these droids were reduced to smoking wreckage by an 18-year-old lightsaber-wielding Jedi Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, before he proceeded to destroy the fake Sun Runner itself using a proton grenade attached to a hypermatter reactor.
The pirate known as Raskar utilized a Duelist Elite as both a sparring partner and, with modifications, as a security measure in the event of unauthorized entry. This was discovered by Han Solo while infiltrating Raskar's villa to retrieve Raskar's power gem. However, Solo outmaneuvered the droid, causing it to charge into the destructive beams surrounding the power gem, resulting in the droid's destruction and leading Raskar to believe Solo had perished until his return.