[Engineer] The Workshop (builds, guides, and discussion)

[Karast]

Interesting. I never understood why some builds here spare 3 points in maxing Tinkerer and go Grenadier.
So if you go big into one mastery then also go the full way.
Correct?

yeah. 4-5 points is roughly the same as a dps tactic. So it is better to go all out and stick to your trees abilities.

[Sigimund]

It also suggests that, once you have done that, % based tactics like coordinated fire or trench fighting are more powerful than the BS tactic.

[Glorian]

So for example:

You go Gunblast full spec for 739 Damage

Masterfull Aim would give + 52
Fighting 'Chance +56

Coordinated fire +15% which is (739/100)*15 = + 111
Trench Fighting +15% if 45 Feet of Target = +111
But you need to spend a Master Point for Trench Fighting. So one other set of Masteries is roughly -9 Damage.

[Karast]

Yeah.

Keep in mind though that there is a BS cap. So if your BS is over the cap you don't get as much benefit from both MA / FC.

Personally I am liking running MA / FC over trench fighting because it lets me cap BS without using too much in renown. Those points can then go to crit, or weaponskill.

Also if you are doing rifle with a gunblast or snipe rotation I would say hollow points is a must. It doubles the damage of a gunblast, it scales well with stats and at max spec it does really good damage.

In a full tinker spec trench fighting will work better since you will be in melee more, and you can roughly the same damage with no toughness loss.

[Glorian]

Instead of Trench Fighting for Tinkerer I took Tracer Rounds.
+15% crit and also +15%healcrits. Perfect for Keg-engi.

With full devastor and some points in ranged crit I got 28% ranged crit chance.
Could have been more but I took full daft defender with renown.

[Karast]

Instead of Trench Fighting for Tinkerer I took Tracer Rounds.
+15% crit and also +15%healcrits. Perfect for Keg-engi.

With full devastor and some points in ranged crit I got 28% ranged crit chance.
Could have been more but I took full daft defender with renown.

That's a good amount of crit. You should be seeing some nice friction burn, and lightning rod crits, if you are max tree.

Even more so if you have a guildie with max grenade debuffing for you.

[Karast]

Since T4 is coming, and more than likely pretty soon, it might be time to start talking about areas that may need improvement.

What do people currently think about tactics? Which tactics do you use, which do you use situation-ally, which do you never use?

I am organizing tactics into 5 general areas very strong (must slot), strong (often slot), good (situational), okay (rarely use), weak (don't use).

This is my break down.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Personally I am not big on turret based tactics, unless I am running well-oiled machine. I find that I don't spend as much time close to my turret as other engi's do. I started my engi long before they added the turret damage buff, and I never found the increased damage to be worth the drop in survivability, so I only use it when I want to spike, or when I have a safe position. So tactics like extra ammo, tracer rounds, are a bit lower on my list. To make use of them I have to have a turret on me, and that means I need well-oiled machine.

I am really liking hollow points, because it is a bit different from live. It got the nerf bat hard on live due for no obvious reason. On live it didn't scale as well, and couldn't crit. So it is a fantastic tactic right now, it doubles the damage of gunblast. This may change in T4 when stats become more important than ability rank.

Those are my thoughts, what do other people think?

[Sigimund]

I also started my engineer before they brought in imp upgrades but I trained myself to keep the turret in range. On live I used the TurretRange addon and here I set Buffhead to show IA over my head. Redeploy is kept on CD.

Very strong (must):
Extra ammo
Fightin' chance (Rifleman only)
Well oiled machine

Strong (often):
Coordinated fire
Hollow points
Masterful aim
Throwing arm
Trench fighting

Good (situational):
Concussive mine
Expert skirmisher
Tracer rounds

Okay (rare):
Ancestral inheritance
Clever recovery
Hand-crafted scope
Pierce defences
Stoutness of stone
Tangling wire

Weak (don't use):
Bandolier - other tactics do this better
Extra powder - target limit, cc breaking, affects weak abilities
Proximity alarm - save a tactic, use a landmine
Quick reloader - other tactics do this better
Reinforced casing - build new turrets too often to care
Stopping power - redundant with kb grenade
Stubbornness - meh

Edit: Added some reasons. Stopping power would be better if it buffed focused fire vs low hp targets like fell the weak or finish em off.

[Glorian]

I'm quite with you.
You differ in the upper categories but there are some coincindences in the bad/least used tactics.
These should be our first targets for Engi Boost in T4.

[Karast]

Well one of the questions is why are the bad / weak tactics bad?

Is it just that another tactic is doing the same job better? or is does the tactic no offer anything worthwhile?

With Bandolier / Quick Reloader, they are not bad tactics, but I think extra ammo, or just the default Clever Recovery do just as good, if not better.

For tactics like Reinforced Casing, Extra Powder, and Stopping Power. I just don't see a use for them at all. Extra Powder increases the splash, but not the target limit, so you don't get too much out of it. The knock back on Stopping Power is just tiny, and we have the grenade knock back already. Reinforced Casing is just a weird tactic. Turrets survivability is not a big issue. It's more the opposite, their damage is so low they are not even a threat.

What are your ideas on these tactics?