Return of Reckoning

I need some help from the longbeards!

I will soon reach with my beloved Engineer Level 40. It is a blast sniping the destros away! Until now I only played a Tank to 40, which made itemization and skilling a little easier... I am a tank, I need to survive. I played Engi as Rifleman only, as I think sniping healers is the most fun, but I am afraid that when I hit Level 40, that I dont deal enough dmg, as I need better equipment...
So I thought, maybe I should play a support engi until I get better gear? Or should I just yolo into full dmg Rifleman and learn proper Spacing? What would the Longbeards recommend? What should be my first steps as freshly level 40 Engineer if I want A: Learn the Game better, B: Be useful and not a block of stone for my team and C: Also having fun?

Thanks a lot for your time!

To be useful, you need to upgrade the white lion

I will not main a Knife Ear, yucks

Dps engi is not very noticeable you're just a shooter.

Displacer engi that throws the enemy around tho.... Saucy, secures kills.

Playing rifleman to a serious level will clearly teach you how to kite and space.
I've play rifleman from O to 83 (Lilgun), I did all the pve gunbad, crypt, BS, HV to help me so I had decent mix of gear at 40. So it's doable. I only played scenarios, premade/zerg surfing (which the spec is strong at) and duo/trio/6man roaming. The spec is unforgiving cause the class sucks (no HD, 20% damage malus cause turret, WS stacking, need M3...), you must sacrifice lot of defense to deal damage which make the spec heavily dependent on triple pots. If you dont have the ressources nor the friends to sustain triple pots you will probably have some terrible times.

Grenadier spec is easier to gear but you will be useless in scenarios, you can play in wb tho. the spec is really good at stealing kills in zerg once you have some BiS (7 triu + lotd or 7sov)

Solo-regen meme spec is **** imo. you are only going to kill braindead WE and random solo mdps. 100% useless rest of the time.

Tanky magnet spec is not relevant outside of guild/org wb. the spell isnt even reliable.

tldr: rifleman is the most fun and hardest spec. class sucks and need balance patch asap