Return of Reckoning

As the title says, I got to thinking about the meta. We all know Bright Wizards/Sorcerers are king when it comes to the blob RDPS. Sometimes I'm not part of a blob and without heals soloing a BW/Sorc just isn't fun, at least for me (but is ALOT of fun in blobs, just free casting as hard as you can spam). Eventually though all the destro/order dads go to bed around 10pm est for me. One moment its great and everyone is having a good time, then a keep siege finishes and everyone is like welp goodnight.. boom.. crickets and 1000 people log off at the same time. Now you are suddenly by yourself, dodging all the WE and WH that are mad they can't get into warbands and they will not stop until they are laughing at you crying on the forums to soothe their pain.

All jokes aside, with an Engineer or Shadowwarrior you can still solo and actually survive while not cooking yourself to death. I know on my engineer I just HAPPENED to be in my ST kegsnipe spec and not mag AoE and managed to survive a fight with 2 shamans who ran up on me while capping a point. With some crazy turret management, keg placement, and some serious LoS dancing, I managed to pull it off. They were bolstered as was I, but that fight wouldn't have lasted more than 10 seconds on my Bright Wizard, not the crazy 5-10 minutes it took so with so many times of almost dying, on my engineer. I just happened to knock one down and focus burned the other before they could react, then a long drawn out fight on the last one.

So my question is this, Who would be better as a second line RDPS? For ease of discussion purposes, BiS everything on a Shadowwarrior vs Engineer. Lets just say rr80 for argument sake and max everything. Also lets just remove the keg out of the equation too so there is no self healing. I guess we could include Squig herder vs Magus as well on destro side, so they are included. I have all 4 characters and while I have my favorites It's no fun looking cool if you are constantly pressing the respawn button instead of the need button on a war token.

So in solo or small group play (3-6 people) who would do better? PUG vs Guild too maybe?

For organized, I think Shadow Warrior (built properly) brings a little more to the table in general than Engi does. Paired with a Swordmaster, they can be excellent. If you're in a pug, or never get to play with tank friends, Engi also offers some excellent CC when used properly. Just my .02!

As Rubius said, it depends on the activity your participating in. SW play styles and builds are very different if you're going from small and solo play to warband play. One is all about single target, range, and kiting. The other is a bonkers shotgun AoE spec that needs a guard and whispering winds to strip away destro's morale every 30s (60s? it's been a hot minute since I looked TBH).

Engineers in warbands I've only really seen the magnet, max utility spec be super useful. I'd be curious to see if their solo spec is as nasty as a Magus. Lockdown for days, and ramping up damage that it is a nightmare to deal with.

Rubius wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:57 am For organized, I think Shadow Warrior (built properly) brings a little more to the table in general than Engi does. Paired with a Swordmaster, they can be excellent. If you're in a pug, or never get to play with tank friends, Engi also offers some excellent CC when used properly. Just my .02!

Yes that's what I was noticing. I really am enjoying playing a tank Swordmaster, but sometimes I like to get on my range characters too. I see alot of SW on the killboards but not that many engineers, which is why I am making this post in the first place. When I played my SW I could do really well but I didn't have much utility, so a single mistake would get me killed (at least it felt that way), but my engineer, while decent damage, had a TON of utility and with that keg I was actually able to survive fights, but just barely. Maybe I was just playing them wrong. Mind you both characters were not rr60+ so it could have just been me not geared up properly to show the true value.

ShadowWar wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:10 pm Engineers in warbands I've only really seen the magnet, max utility spec be super useful. I'd be curious to see if their solo spec is as nasty as a Magus. Lockdown for days, and ramping up damage that it is a nightmare to deal with.

Yep, another reason I asked the question. I only really have time to play a few characters. I don't have the time to level both up completely. I'm talking more about soloing late at night when not many people are on. I encounter other solos and the occasional duo or triple. Sometimes a healer is involved, usually a shaman. I guess I need to look for SW videos online to see how they are played. If they are better than my engi at ST kiting them I would rather do that. Mind you I mostly play tank and MDPS these days but I miss keep defending, sniping off of keep walls and raining down mortar fire lol. I'm curious if SW has any decent AoE capabilities.

Engie used to have couple of viable builds when it comes to roaming. Now it is basically reduced to AA kiting spec, which honestly is not that fun to play, having mostly SHs, shammies and WEs as a counterpart. Grenadier/tinkerer has been nerfed into oblivion - it doesn't have any burst nor cqb survivability these days due to the changes made to turrets mechanics. Long cast times + long animations don't help either. In most setups, especially for small scale, it is pretty pointless to choose engie over other dps classes. No silence nor HD, no viable KD, no snare (tactic needed, really?), no runaway button. So, even with all its drawbacks, I'd say SW is better.

For pure solo i would say probably engi as they have much more survivability that SW.
With the pure amount of Dps Shamans and Zealots around it can be pretty tough out there for SW.
All Destro rdps also have a disarm ability now too, which is pretty much a death sentence.

If you are planning to WB surf, SW is probably better.