Post by skyyline on Nov 24, 2013 6:41:52 GMT -6
Hey you all! So I have been playing engineer for a long time now, and although there maybe many engineers around our guild, I'd like to share some of my knowledge from my experiences!
This guide will be fairly lengthy, so if you're not really looking for something long I'm sorry!
Well I'm assuming you're an endgame engineer at level 50 or capped. To really make this simpler, I will not have an ability tree, but have suggestions.
Stats:
For stats, I go all INT, as that is the engi's native stat. However, going a mix of int and str (3:2)Ratio was decent, or even all STR is fine. The nice large HP pool late game, and the HP regen is nice to boot.
Dex really doesn't do much, so I don't recommend. Also TURN AUTOLEVELING OFF.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Let's go over some absolutely required skills on a survival/support engineer! I will post them in most importance to least importance.
Empathy (healing spell)- This is the bread and butter of an engineer. Early maxing of this is not absolutely necessary, as the amount heal increased is not worth the mana cost at early levels, but make sure to max this. A good tip is to constantly keep your heal up during combat, regardless of their health stats. This is the safest measure to keep them alive during combat, don't only use the heal when they're low. Keep the party full health all the time. I recommend using this skill prior to fighting a large mob.
Protection - This is the second most important in my opinion. I maxed this out second, as the armour buff at max provides a decent amount of armour. The duration is pretty long and the mana cost is decent, so as a support engie, make sure your entire team is ALWAYS armour buffed. I have seen alot of engies never cast their protection, and the armour amount may sound negligible, but can make a difference. This I would recommend max out second after empathy.
Transference - This is your primary offensive and at the same defensive ability. This I recommend maxing as soon as possible. The mana cost is manageable. The skill is an aoe damage/health leech that is amplified with more targets, so use this technique around a large mob. Now this is the one spell that can mean a wipe of your whole team and surviving. Most engies spam their skills, and usually works out. This skill is ABSOLUTELY important to time. You should make a habit of keeping tabs on their health bars. Time this skill, so when members of your party are low, and your already casted Empathy is not enough, use this skill. Make sure to remember to use it around alot of mobs for the maximum effect. This will heal you and your nearby teammates to full life.
Revive - Pretty straight forward, if you happen to fail to keep your teammates alive use this to bring them back. Put only one point in this, no point in adding any points as it does nothing to it. Good way to keep newly revived people alive when midst of a huge horde, time it so you revive, then transference and then place your protection and empathy. This will make them full health instant they're revived , giving them time.
Suppression- This is a more advanced skill to use properly in a group. In solo runs, this is great to escape from a tight situations, or to wait on the cooldown of a skill. In groups, people don't usually acknowledge skills and just button mash. But with a good group this can be used to save a person in a pinch, or to time certain skills. Just make sure to put in a point in it before getting offensive skills. The stun also negates targeting, which is a plus to people not ruining the CC to help someone get away.
Pain - This is a semi decent skill, with its okay damage, aoe delayed explosion, and its stun. Same with suppression, its timing. The stun is great for enemies chasing weak or low health teammates for them to either leave, get healed or just get out. Put one skill point into it early then when you have a surplus of points max it.
All of the other engi skills I have never really taken a liking to, the damage spells don't really do much damage, and the ones that do such as Sonic Boom, The Armour Penetration Skill and the Leech, are not really necessary to being a support engie. Late game you will have maxed out your core skills so put max skills into things of your choice. For a damage engie build, see elsewhere x)
________________________________________________________________________
Basic Item Guidelines: Shortened, will expand on later
So armour and MP is the name of the game. Look for armour that gives you mana, and armour. HP is very important, but with the right amount of mana and right navigation, this will keep you alive. More to come on this portion
For weapons, early game I'd say stick to engie hands. The nice stats from there and the decent damage make them okay for the short term you're in the low levels. As you get higher up in the 30s, pistols and shield combo is great for the HP and armour, though damage might not be decent. If you're confident with your survival going engie hands give you a decent DPS. At the lvl 40-50 point, using the scorn hands is great. The amazing armour stat with its damage makes you tanky and hard to kill. However, with the napalms, it's almost always good to use that for the aoe damage. If you don't have one , you can't go wrong with scorn hands.
Basic Chart for weapon preferences
This guide will be fairly lengthy, so if you're not really looking for something long I'm sorry!
Well I'm assuming you're an endgame engineer at level 50 or capped. To really make this simpler, I will not have an ability tree, but have suggestions.
Stats:
For stats, I go all INT, as that is the engi's native stat. However, going a mix of int and str (3:2)Ratio was decent, or even all STR is fine. The nice large HP pool late game, and the HP regen is nice to boot.
Dex really doesn't do much, so I don't recommend. Also TURN AUTOLEVELING OFF.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Let's go over some absolutely required skills on a survival/support engineer! I will post them in most importance to least importance.
Empathy (healing spell)- This is the bread and butter of an engineer. Early maxing of this is not absolutely necessary, as the amount heal increased is not worth the mana cost at early levels, but make sure to max this. A good tip is to constantly keep your heal up during combat, regardless of their health stats. This is the safest measure to keep them alive during combat, don't only use the heal when they're low. Keep the party full health all the time. I recommend using this skill prior to fighting a large mob.
Protection - This is the second most important in my opinion. I maxed this out second, as the armour buff at max provides a decent amount of armour. The duration is pretty long and the mana cost is decent, so as a support engie, make sure your entire team is ALWAYS armour buffed. I have seen alot of engies never cast their protection, and the armour amount may sound negligible, but can make a difference. This I would recommend max out second after empathy.
Transference - This is your primary offensive and at the same defensive ability. This I recommend maxing as soon as possible. The mana cost is manageable. The skill is an aoe damage/health leech that is amplified with more targets, so use this technique around a large mob. Now this is the one spell that can mean a wipe of your whole team and surviving. Most engies spam their skills, and usually works out. This skill is ABSOLUTELY important to time. You should make a habit of keeping tabs on their health bars. Time this skill, so when members of your party are low, and your already casted Empathy is not enough, use this skill. Make sure to remember to use it around alot of mobs for the maximum effect. This will heal you and your nearby teammates to full life.
Revive - Pretty straight forward, if you happen to fail to keep your teammates alive use this to bring them back. Put only one point in this, no point in adding any points as it does nothing to it. Good way to keep newly revived people alive when midst of a huge horde, time it so you revive, then transference and then place your protection and empathy. This will make them full health instant they're revived , giving them time.
Suppression- This is a more advanced skill to use properly in a group. In solo runs, this is great to escape from a tight situations, or to wait on the cooldown of a skill. In groups, people don't usually acknowledge skills and just button mash. But with a good group this can be used to save a person in a pinch, or to time certain skills. Just make sure to put in a point in it before getting offensive skills. The stun also negates targeting, which is a plus to people not ruining the CC to help someone get away.
Pain - This is a semi decent skill, with its okay damage, aoe delayed explosion, and its stun. Same with suppression, its timing. The stun is great for enemies chasing weak or low health teammates for them to either leave, get healed or just get out. Put one skill point into it early then when you have a surplus of points max it.
All of the other engi skills I have never really taken a liking to, the damage spells don't really do much damage, and the ones that do such as Sonic Boom, The Armour Penetration Skill and the Leech, are not really necessary to being a support engie. Late game you will have maxed out your core skills so put max skills into things of your choice. For a damage engie build, see elsewhere x)
________________________________________________________________________
Basic Item Guidelines: Shortened, will expand on later
So armour and MP is the name of the game. Look for armour that gives you mana, and armour. HP is very important, but with the right amount of mana and right navigation, this will keep you alive. More to come on this portion
For weapons, early game I'd say stick to engie hands. The nice stats from there and the decent damage make them okay for the short term you're in the low levels. As you get higher up in the 30s, pistols and shield combo is great for the HP and armour, though damage might not be decent. If you're confident with your survival going engie hands give you a decent DPS. At the lvl 40-50 point, using the scorn hands is great. The amazing armour stat with its damage makes you tanky and hard to kill. However, with the napalms, it's almost always good to use that for the aoe damage. If you don't have one , you can't go wrong with scorn hands.
Basic Chart for weapon preferences
________________________________________
LV 1-10 [At this point, using specific level Greens is preferred, such as modified grog gun, etc.]
LV 11-15 [Using the Green weapons of the early game is probably your best option for damage and stats at these lower levels. However if you have currency, pairing one of the one handed weapons with an early pink shield will give you decent early game survivability]
LV 16-20 [Using plat weapons were my top choices, as their good stats and cheap price tag are enticing. Popular PvP weapons such as the Thud Gun and Power Gauntlets are choice at this point.]
LV 21-30 [The Numa Greens are my personal favorite here. The Scavenger Rifle, and rusty pistol were my favorites, especially pairing the pistol with the shield. In the slouch parts, I actually continued to use the Numa Greens, as most of the weapons found on Slouch were not to my liking.]
LV 30-40 [This is where it gets interesting. The endless combo of epics you have access to at LV 30, give you a great opportunity to choose your preference for late game. Shield+ Pistol is a great combo for the HP and armour safety cushion. This combo in the LV 35+ gives you the chance to use the preferred best combo of the plat shield + legendary l35 pistol of your choice. I will refer to this later. Rifles at this point are pretty useless in my opinion, so I ditched that option. The epic engie hands, the welding torches are a great substitute if you lack currency to buy one of the pinks. Their good dps and stats make them a solid choice.]
L35 Pink Pistols: Pros and Cons
Guttersnipe- The weakest of the three, it provides better DPS and mana stats then most other epics. However in comparison to the other two pinks, it falls short of just about everything. This is a good economic choice if you lack the funds to purchase the other two.
Electrorazer- The middle tier of the three, it provides high DPS, and decent stats. This is an operative preferred pink, but solid nevertheless.
Nova Blaster- Slower rate of fire, and packs a punch. It trades DPS for higher damage per shot. The nice health stats make this my choice for pinks when it comes to it.
LV 41-50 [At the level 40 mark, the word you will constantly see over and over is napalm. I will provide a chart for napalm preferences. Asides from using the naps, as an engie it's all about surviving. Dodge is an important stat for this. There are three sub stats that you should be looking out for: DODGE, CRIT % and HIT %. Weapons for the early 40s, I stuck with my 35 pink combo. As I got access to the 42+ armour, the 42+ weapons, the engie hands (Grips) provide dps AND a crazy amount of armour. For pure survivalibity, I usually go for the engie hands, thus trading damage for armour.]
DODGE- The most crucial for an engie, this enables you to dodge hits that may deal alot of damage and keep you in the fight. LV 42+ Uraz Grips provide a great amount of dodge in addition to the armour of the mentioned weapon.
CRIT % - A stat that mostly operatives concern over, this factors how often you would crit. As a support, I don't generally try to spec into crit.
HIT % - In my opinion, a petty stat in PvE, I generally don't pay attention to this substat.
Basic Napalm Guide
Primed Napalm- The most coveted of the four, this nap specializes in crit %. The constant stream of damage from naps combined with high crits mean a constant stream of crit damage.
DM Napalm (Dark Matter)- The DM did not have any specific stats that I was looking for, but it's a decent nap (better then none
Bioneural Napalm- The MP based nap, it's solid on engie, as engis constantly use mana and the more, the better.
Fused Napalm- My personal favorite, this nap has a HUGE HP increase stat, giving you the appropriate
That's it for now! I will elaborate as I get more time! Let me know what you think.