I’ve tried this build yesterday. Here are my observations:
Its pretty fun in solo PvE! I like bombs, but they require you to get in the heat of battle. Being able to survive well is achieved with this build; therefore, you can use bombs effectively. It is neat the way I can run into 5 mobs and tank + kill them all. With a pure DPS bomb build, this would be suicide. Handling vets or elite mobs isn’t a problem. You do enough damage to kill single mobs fast enough and are actually a nice farmer when grouping them up. I grouped up with a warrior and we really effectively cut though content and never died.
In dungeons, I feel useful. It is easy to maintain 10+ might stacks with combos (fire bomb -> explode 2 turrets _> bigold bomb -> rocket boots), ppl don’t die from all the blinds I do, and the healing adds up. Though I do decent damage, sometimes it feels like I am best off just being in a DPS blast mode and my healing/toughness is wasted. People just want to have a “speed run” where stuff is getting DPSed down fast and everyone focuses on damage avoidance by evades or playing smart.
I find that in world bosses, I am surviving to heal/buff the back end zerg or DPS + healing the front line. Seems the key to surviving is to dodge + damage avoidance rather than eating damage + healing. While others drop constantly, I survive, buff, and rez. Seems like my healing isn’t enough to prevent people from dying from bursts… which is what kills…I might drop 6 bombs to heal ~1k, but that healing is wasted when that person drops after taking a 10k burst…I would have been better off dealing more damage that healing at all.
For PvP, I can run into a group of enemies, deal damage, and survive for a pretty long time. Doesn’t seem I do enough damage to kill anything…which is okay because generally battles are based on who’s zerg is bigger. I’ve had some 1v1’s and always seem to lose because the guy i am fighting can eventually burst me down faster than I can heal or evade. Seems like I am keeping the guy busy till someone shows up and we kill him 1v2. Side point… some guys I am fighting can really unleash 12k+ really quick…no way engineer can keep up with that kind of damage!
Overall, I really like this build solo or small groups, but it feels under-powered everywhere else. For all the healing invested, bombs should heal for A LOT more IMO…doesn’t fell like I am healing, but rather giving perma regen. Its basically 600 per sec or 3k per sec if 5 ppl are around…which isn’t that bad… add in healing turret and that you’re doing damage and healing at the same time. A PvP zerg battle can be 20-30 sec… this would mean you potentially healed enough to give 5 ppl + yourself double HP…sound good in theory, but doesn’t really work that way in practice because people die from getting burst down in less than 6 sec…and your ~3k heal isn’t going to save them from that…the blinds in this build help though.
Honestly, the only ‘powerful’ build I have played with is full DPS/burst glass cannon rifle/turret/SD build…and that is rather limited from what I see other classes do. No question that if you want DPS, you should always have a rifle and rocket turret up… but they are so easy to kill and this limits builds.
A grenade might stacking glass cannon build is always pretty effective, but I don’t really like grenades. It is way to hard to hit moving targets.
My conclusion is I can’t really recommend the ‘healer bomber’ build outside of solo or small group PvE, where it really shines.