I think few defended the cause of angry Engineers feeling pushed down to the bottom of viable classes as fervently as I did. But now, after trying both one and two things, I have had to revise my stance and feel the time is ripe to look back at how things ultimately have panned out.
My biggest gripe was the elixir gun. But after changing my build, I can say this thing is as reliable as ever.
I have healing power and toughness on pretty much all my gear, and 30 points in toughness. I output about 300 hp per sec per circle – For ten seconds.
That’s 300×20=6000. Let’s assume healing mist (toolbelt skill) does 370. That’s 370×10. So far 9700. Add in an impact heal of 680 per super elixir and that’s 1360. That’s 11060 hp over 10 secs. If you have elixir infused bombs and spam those as well that’s pretty much like a third super elixir. But since the time intervall between bombs seem less than a second it might even bumb us up to the 15k mark. Pop elixir U and it’s easy to go above 20k.
Now this is outstanding in it’s own right. But it also requires that you have time to stand around for ten seconds, which is rarely the case both in PvE and PvP. But overall, this adds to Engineers survivability and makes him a VERY competent healer in explorable paths and in some situations, PvP.
The big thing was though that these numbers could well be achieved without pooling healing stats into your gear, like you should have to if you want to be a godly healer. In retrospect I can’t deny that it was bugged and needed a fix.
Next for the grenades. I never used these a lot as I consider them too easy to dodge. From a PvE standpoint though they definetly have the potential to shine – Especially since Engineers can stack might and fury forever now.
But is it enough? From what I gather, any damage focused Engineer can easily keep 10-15 might stacks running in a fight with constant fury – Is that a buff in damage that compensates or overcompensates for the 30% damage reduction since the patch? I don’t know. Maybe someone with a number cruncher mind can dish out a good response.
About no weapon stats with the kits… Let’s place the cards on the tabls, who uses kits over the regular weapons to spam attacks anyways? And personally I feel Engineer might be considered OP with the addition of this, considering how much our might stacking has grown, and I’d rather keep things as they are than having them nerfed to “compensate” for kits with weapon stats.
Finally to what the Engineer can bring both to himself and the team. I feel, that as now is, Engineer can be a bunker or a healer or a straight out crit and condition damager – And do a very good job at any of those – Not to talk about the aoe buffs – , or a decent job at all three, focusing on shoring up where there’s lacking from “expert” classes in either department and defend himself in a pinch with a varied and unpredictable arsenal. It really is a skill based class though. There’s also interesting new builds surfacing, such as the “Chain lightning Engineer” build and before that we had the “Tankcat Build”. I’d say that this class has enormous potential and is by no means out of the game yet – It’s just not a class that you can pick up and do very well with when you don’t play against skillfull enemies.
Get good at it though, and jebus.
But one thing can’t be denied. For the love of god, FIX the bugs with the skills. PLEASE. Backpack generator does NOTHING, and turrets STILL fire at whatever they feel like.
Keep gaming on fellow engies.
(edited by Oxstar.7643)
