Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.
Possible new engineer:
1. If you go with Pistol/Pistol or Pistol/Shield, then getting the most out of your damage conditions is great. If you plan on rifle or most kits, you get more bang for your buck out of power. Even with Pistol/Pistol, running power over condition damage is still great, and possibly even optimal. The firearms trait line will grant Precision and Condition Damage, so it’s hard to say which is overall better. Basically, you got to find your playstyle first. Annoying, I know.
2. For leveling, I suggest picking up a Rifle as soon as you can. They get more out of Power, which is an easier stat to take advantage of early. Grenades are a good buy early, just to keep handy for underwater fighting. For land combat, I personally suggest Throw Mine, because it synergizes well with Rifle’s kiting capability. An easier choice might be Rifle Turret though, as turrets scale decently at low levels when you don’t have a lot of stats anyway. (They currently don’t scale well with stats, so it kind of makes people sad pandas late game.)
When you can pick it up, get Flamethrower (Usually around level 10-12 for me, but your mileage may vary.) You may love it, you may hate it. Play with it, see how it suits you. When you love it, it’s a great leveling weapon. Otherwise, start investing in Elixirs, since they tend to be the most-used utilities late-game.
3. If you don’t use kits, you won’t see the backpack, so you won’t have to look “goofy” if you don’t like them. I have two, Sylvari and Human, as I really enjoy their stories. Especially Sylvari, as they just feel so unique.
4. Engineers are very dynamic when played properly, and especially with Kits. You need to adapt to the fight more than other professions, especially with the rifle. A well-timed knockback or blind can turn hopeless battles for you.
Sadly, there are many bugs. The forum has an extensive sticky topic on Engineer bugs, and it’s longer than anyone would like. We still can work around these bugs though.
5. The skill level on a max-level Engie is realllly high. That’s why few play them, as they feel that the skill level isn’t rewarded enough, as Engineers are one of the least capable of seeing “personal glory” like big damage numbers, hitpoints, and armor value. What they do well is synergy, and it’s a shame few people see that, or just plain disregard it when they can just roll another class and get the more instant gratification of being personally awesome.
A Thief might be able to smash things for all the damage, but an Engineer can make that Thief slice through foes like a JRPG overcompensation sword.
The worst part is that some people have allegedly taken to kicking Engineers out of fractals groups, thinking that the Engineer can’t contribute enough, when it simply is not true.
1. Engineers are pretty good at dishing out burn, but I wouldn’t recommend building a PvE build around conditions only. If you build for support, you’ll end up doing quite a bit of your damage as conditions even if you don’t have a lot of condition damage. If you build for damage, power/prec/crit damage will always do more than conditions.
2. Kits are great for leveling because they scale with your level, so it’s like always being decently-geared. Static discharge (tier 1 in tools) is also a great leveling trait.
3. “Engineer” is just a name—we usually don’t end up putting up many turrets or doing other “engineerish” things. Don’t feel like you have to be a charr or asura just because you’re an “engineer.”
4. Really fun! and, lots of bugs. Very dynamic! and, yes, you will pull your hair out sometimes.
5. Engineers are very good in skilled hands, but realistically, we fall behind other professions both in pure glass cannon roles, and pure support roles right now. I would expect that to change in the future—engineer may be the current least-played profession, and very, very few tournament PvP teams or high-level fractal teams use them. With a couple of fixes/buffs, we’ll become much better.
Just a little note on 3: You’ll be using kits a lot as an engineer. While a kit is out, you’re in a ‘combat’ ready stance, which for Charr, means upright and on two feet. It also counts as a weapon unsheathing, so when unequipping a kit, you’ll have weapons drawn for a while.
Just something to keep in mind. And if it really bugs ya, just bind a key to Holster weapon for when you don’t wanna be on all fours.
Tarnished Coast Engineer and… general alt-o-holic.
For the toast!
For the toast!
(edited by Halcyon.7352)
Hi, thinking of rolling an engineer. Need some…advice :p
1. I guess stacking condition is pretty useful?
2. What are pretty good leveling builds? Not looking for OP, or “Whats the best”, just something where it will be interesting.
3. What race and sex are you? This is a big question mark for me. I already think carrying a pack of goodies on my back is..goofy. And the only classes I can logically see being engineers are Charr and Asura, however cliché. However, Asura are too small for me, where I wont see their gear. And Im not fond of running on all fours! I dont want to be human, kind of sick of them. Sylvari..just dont go with engineer in my opinion…Norn either.
4. How are engineers leveling? Difficult? Boring? Interesting? More rotational based like an elementalist, or does it completely dynamically change during the fight..from fight to fight. Will I be pulling my hair out from difficulty or frustration? Are there many bugs?
5. How are engineers at max level, in say fractals? I love having engis in dungeons, but I see very few in fractals these days. Why?
You don’t see many engineers in fractals because:
1) the class is definitely one of the less/least popular.
2) engineers are.. far from optimal for fractal progression.
I used to run in a regular fractal group, and 2 of the members had engineers. They never brought them simply because they didn’t offer anything useful that other classes couldn’t, while doing much less damage.
This was before our main source of damage was nerfed into the ground.
The class is fun to play and level, but if you are after high end fractal progression I wouldn’t main engineer, still worth leveling though IMO.
This was before our main source of damage was nerfed into the ground.
Nofo is talking about Grenades. They are no longer our primary source of damage solo, however, they’re still GREAT in teams for high level stuff. It’s one of those “instant gratification” things.
Say you got your Thief, Guardian, Warrior, and Elementalist, all smacking things around. They do a lot of damage, likely more than you might be set up for. But if you take Grenadier at Explosives 30, each button press of grenades that you chuck will inflict 3 stacks, lasting 6.5 seconds (including Duration Bonus) of vulnerability. With Firearms 10, you can make each crit a 50% chance of an additional Vulnerability stack. And there’s a sigil that does the same thing on a 30% chance. So each throw is likely to net you 4-5 stacks of vulnerability. With Pistol/X, you can get a 10% increase to vulnerability duration, take some runes to help that, and then you’ll EASILY cap a target’s Vulnerability by yourself.
Maybe you’re not doing the best damage in the group, but you just added 25% to everyone’s damage… That means you’re more than pulling your weight in a team, just by spamming a bunch of explosive balls.
With the vulnerability alone, in a 5 man team, you are now effectively doing DPS that puts you right in the middle of the pack… Add grenade damage, and you can justly claim to have been responsible for a lot of damage, even if your white numbers are relatively low.
See what I mean? Synergy! You don’t get to see all the damage you’re actually doing.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
I played mostly static discharge build which wasnt touched…out of all my 80’s (war/thief/mes/rang) i think static discharge is the best burst build because it offers more utility and still has as much burst as any other class
variations of Poiz – Talons [BT] – Fort Aspenwood
With the vulnerability alone, in a 5 man team, you are now effectively doing DPS that puts you right in the middle of the pack… Add grenade damage, and you can justly claim to have been responsible for a lot of damage, even if your white numbers are relatively low.
See what I mean? Synergy! You don’t get to see all the damage you’re actually doing.
This.
Vulnerability is a great way to support your group and is often a thankless job, but by doing so you no longer feel bad for your lack of dps.
In my opinion Engineers offer two types of support: offensive and defensive. Offensively, you can stack vulnerability, poison, and weakness really well; while defensively, you can offer multiple stacks of regeneration via Super Elixirs and regular regen. The only problem is that while Engineers are capable of these things, they do not excel in them and that is what I believe Engineers should be. Sure Necros can probably stack conditions faster, or a guardian dish out major heals, but Engis can do them both; at the same time.
As an Engi you WILL have to put a degree of effort more than other classes, but the payoff is you becoming a better player. I’ll tell you that I worry more about my team, rather than my own numbers. Are they doing too little damage? No problem, I’ll give them some might and soften up the mobs with vunerabilty and poison. Are they taking too much damage? I’ll put some regeneration on them and take off conditions.
Engineers offer a lot of utility and I only mentioned a handful of what they’re capable of. I will warn you though that the damage output is certainly not the best, but what some classes can do with one button, Engineers look like they’re writing a symphony.
WTB: Party-wide Protection & Stability
(edited by PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263)