After growing sick and tired of swapping to different characters to fit the role that my guild needed, I decided I’d make the most versatile zerg-focused engi I could that could hang with the warriors and guardians. I’ve ran this build for 2 weeks and I’ve had a lot of success with it.
Strengths
*Decent Aoe damage that almost always hits the front of the zerg as they pass
*5 Blast finishers (some are obviously more difficult to execute like Big Ol’ Bomb)
*Combo fields that are regularly needed like fire and water fields
*Very durable (I’m also Asura master race so sometimes people don’t even pay attention to me)
*Somewhat reliable escape (Stealth combos/Toss elixer S + Rocket boots)
*Self healing (If your bomb spam isn’t interrupted you should be out regening HS wars. Backpack regen = 165 Bomb heal = 291, Regen boon = 250, altogether 706 per second. The real strength in this though is that unlike Wars, you still have your Healing Turret to cast alongside that regen as well as whatever you can get from water + blasts.)
*Group healing (Regen boon, bomb heal, water + blasts. If both zergs are at a stand off regrouping I just spam bombs and regen to heal my allies.)
*Knockbacks (From personal experience I can say that Big Ol’ Bomb sometimes goes completely unnoticed in a zerg. If you’re smart pop a water field so you knock them back and provide a mid-fight Aoe heal to your buddies. Shield 4 is also there but it’s less reliable radius wise. You’re up in the enemies face though since you’re spamming bombs and it’s not too difficult.)
Potential Weaknesses
*Poison (Obvious reasons, however since most people are running PTV and not focusing on using conditions it really isn’t common unless they’re an organized guild with a ton of necros.)
*Only one stun breaker (Tbh though I don’t have that much of a problem with this, the guardians around me usually give me the stability I need to survive the incoming stuns. On top of that as you can see I try to make sure that stuns actually don’t have that great of an impact. Stabilized Armor + Protection Injection + Saffron Bread give me massive damage reduction on top of my armor stat.)
*Next to no condi removal outside of HT (Like CC though I try to mitigate condi’s effects as much as possible with Saffron Bread, Melandru Runes and Automated Response)
*Lack of Vigor/Evasion (Again though I rely on my zerg buddies to give me the vigor I need. Warriors with warhorn are so common and help me in that regard. I also take Energy sigils to try and help.)
Other Notes
*The missing Inventions trait is interchangeable depending on the situation. If I’m running trying to reach the zerg I take Power Shoes, after that though I replace it with either Protective Shield or Reinforced Shield because others will be applying the necessary swiftness.
*The reason I have two weapon swap sigils is due to the upcoming Sigil rework. I imagine though that Energy sigils will be reduced to either 25% or 33% to compensate. At the moment now though I take Superior Sigil of Restoration because you tag so many people with your bombs.
*THIS IS NOT A ROAMING OR 1V1 BUILD. Can it roam? If by roam you mean run around without too much risk of getting 1 shotted, then most certainly yes. It can 1v1 just as good as any other bunker character, it won’t reliably kill anyone though unless they are bad or over-commit. My only successful fight was a 2v1, but the other 2 were just really bad. The warrior got his Kill Shot reflected back at him and the engi with him didn’t try to kite my bombs or anything.
*Why 30 in Alchemy instead of the 20 just needed for Backpack Regen? Extra boon duration for regen/prot, more health, AR helps when trying to escape when cripples/immo/chill is being thrown everywhere. Plus all starting traits in firearms are useless for this build, another 10 in explosives doesn’t give much, and putting 10 in tools for something like speedy kits is redundant while the others don’t offer anything outstanding.