[Pierre Costals]

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=227438

Citation :

Whether you think Engineer is underpowered or useless is up to you, I'm just posting SCs as I go. Being top of brackets in SCs depicts partly the effectiveness of a class as well. Just keep in mind its not everything, and class effectiveness is a very broad and intricate subject too. I've heard mixed reviews with Engineer. Some people say they're terrible. Some people say they're great. Some people think they have a lack of damage, and some people think they're right where they are. I'll leave this up to you to decide.

I'm a Grenadier Spec Engineer but until recently (17) this didn't matter. None of these SCs have Extra Powder, and a lot of them (pre 16) don't even have Fragmentation grenade yet. I'll start from Tier 1 up, sorted by Damage. I'll try not to spam too many, but enough to make sure that consistency without doctoring is proven in the performance. I'll make notes when I gain crucial abilities that change game play, or different spec changes.


The Beginning!

Know your Stats and Resistances!:

Depending on what your Engineer is doing, you'll want to be equipped properly to get the best performance out of him. Also know how much stats effect him and if any of them have diminishing returns for their effectiveness.

Ballistics Skill: Increases the damage of all your ranged attacks, and reduces the chance for enemies to block or evade attacks. (Important PvE and RvR Stat)

Wounds: Increases the amount of Hit Point you have and helps you survive burst damage from Witch Elves, Sorcerers, etc. (Important RvR Stat)

Toughness: Decreases all damage by a set amount. This ability is good for reducing constant incoming damage. (Important PvE Stat)

Initiative: Increases the chance to avoid attacks and reduces an attackers chance to critically hit you. (It is best to only stack this stack until you only have a 10-11% chance to be crit. This stat has diminishing returns and is why stacking it past this point is not recommended.)

Strength: Increases the damage of your melee attacks.

Intelligence: Increases magical damage and decreases enemies chance to block or disrupt attacks.

Willpower: Increases healing dealt to allies and increases your chance to disrupt spells.

Weapon Skill: Increases your chance to Parry and penetrate opponent's armor. Many Engineers do not know that Weapon Skill is an important Stat to bypass armor for your Physical Attacks on heavier targets. These attacks consist of Auto Attacking, Gun Blast, Focus Fire, Hip Shot, Snipe, Spanner Swipe, Blunderbuss Blast, etc.

Therefore if you plan on playing a Rifleman Spec Engineer, Weapon Skill helps you bypass armor. It is even debated that on targets over the 1400-1500 armor range that Weapon Skill is more important than Ballistics Skill. I wouldn't say you should aim for making Weapon Skill more important over Ballistics Skill however, since the role of an engineer is to pressure, disrupt, defend, and focus down low health Medium to Lightly armored enemies. (Granted, if you see a low health tank, you can try to polish him off) Ultimately, don't ignore it, but don't necessarily make it your most important Stat in the world.

If you play a Tinkerer or a Grenadier, Weapon Skill can still be important if you use your physical attacks a lot, or sub Rifleman to your main spec. If you don't plan on using your physical attacks whatsoever, you can focus strictly on Ballistics Skills since it increases your damage with all of your ranged attacks, including Dots on grenades.

RvR Stats: Depending on what spec Engineer you are, you'll need to know what stats are most important.

After reading a lot of posts this is what I've found many Engineers reported to work best for them.

Ballistics Skills, Wounds, Initiative, and Weapon skill are a common setup for Engineers that participate in PvP.

For PvE Ballistic Skill, Wounds, Toughness, and Initiative will be your best bets for a sturdier and safer Solo questing and AoEing.

Resistances:

Resistances for PvE are only important when you know you'll be fighting monsters or a boss that uses spells of a certain kind of resist. If you know before hand, finding the best set of gear will help you negate a lot of damage.

For RvR though however, there are important resistances to stack first and foremost before others. The lineup in important should be as follows and is listed in order of importance:

Spiritual, Corporeal, are the big two that you should be worries about. A Sorcerer's damage at higher levels mainly come from AoEs such as Pit of Shades and Shadow Knives. Also one of their best single target spells Hand of Ruin is Spiritual as well. Some of their single target abilities such as Doombolt and Chillwind along with a good group of Magus spells and Zealot spells are Corporeal, but the vast majority of the high damage spells you will be hit with are Spiritual. Even if you raised your Spiritual resistance solely, you would see a huge reduction in magic damage used against you in RvR.


Leveling in T1 and Strategies
Levels 1 through 11 I did solely with Scenarios and scouting RvR Objectives in every area.

If you choose to quest and kill monsters, its a fairly simple process. Deploy a Gun Turret and open up with Gun Blast. When the monster is in close up spam Firebomb until dead. When you get it, you can use Acid Bomb to reduce the target's corporeal resistance, making your Firebomb ability hit for a lot more. I did not use friction burn a lot as it was just faster and more efficient to bomb them with Firebomb than letting the duration of friction burn finish on my target. It also did not deal damage fast enough compared to how much damage I was taking for the AP cost.

NordenWatch T1 Screen Shots:

Level 9
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4476/booz6ij9.jpg
Level 10
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6361/booz5lr1.jpg
Level 11
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3469/booz4gg6.jpgLeveling in T2 and Strategies

Levels 12 through 17 completed by Scenarios and Scouting RvR Objectives in Marshes of Madness.

Mourkain Temple T2 Screen Shots:

Level 15 (No Fragmentation Grenade)
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/4566/booz1ny4.jpg

Level 16 (Fragmentation Grenade)
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/6049/booz0pz1.jpg
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1682/booz3wf9.jpg
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8895/booz7yv7.jpg

Level 17 - Took Extra Powder as a Tactic from Grenadier

The new tactic really shows a huge improvement in Grenades. The Area of Effect increase is very noticeable, and improves damage a lot. Even in open RvR its easy to hit 2-3 people in one Acid Bomb/Fragmentation Grenade without trying hard. Also the amount that I dealt damage could be achieved faster as I hit more targets on the first initial throws.

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/8...orunityjg3.jpg

As you can see I got the whole pack. Don't miss opportunities like this to make people pay for grouping up too tightly. Groups happen, its just a natural phenomenon with people in general, even in games. Strength in numbers is smart, but packing too tightly is not smart.

Mourkain Temple T2 Screen shots Level 17:
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3329/lvl173nl3.jpg SC done in 6:11
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7664/level171ep4.jpg SC done in 6:23
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4058/lvl172er1.jpg SC done in 8:56

I participated in the Open RvR Event 15/15 players, and gained 1 bar of Exp in 45 minutes. (Was fun at least but not the most efficient use of my time.) However, I did notice that my presence in battle helped out, and the Grenades coupled with well a placed Gun Blast or a Firebomb would whittle down and kill anyone who was not getting direct healing from the 3 second spell. The Grenades with Incendiary shells also appeared to out damage the heals over time from one healer.

I consistently continued to bombard them with my grenades to ensure the effects never wore off, and in about 30 seconds it would take any MDPS, RDPS, or Healers down to about 50% maybe 60% if they didn't get hit with the first batch of grenades. Unless their healers were throwing out AoE heals or two healers were throwing out HoTs on everyone (both AoE heals and Hots to all team members stress healing big time) people were dropping to dangerous levels of health and were easy to focus down by my team mates or myself and my turret. (I've been using Gun Turret when I can)

Basically, to give an exact idea look at it this way. It costs me 65 action points to dot people with Acid Bomb and Fragmentation Grenade if I only cast it the one time. Just to heal the damage done at this level healers have to cast two Area of Effect heals (65 Ap per for a total of 130 AP total) or cast 2-3 HoTs ( 55 AP on the first one, and 30 AP on the second for a total of 85 AP per person) to offset the damage. (The Zealot and Shaman hots cost the same: Dark Medicine and Tzeentch's Cordial or Gork'll Fix It and 'Ey, Quit Bleedin')

A lot of discussion has come up about having a hot or two negate an Engineer's damage, making Engineer's AoE damage useless. As far as I can tell at this level while two hots do heal a good portion of DoT damage from my Acid Bomb and Fragmentation Grenade there is a few things to also keep in context. Hots can only keep up with the DoT portion of your damage. If you begin to single fire onto targets, the only thing they can do to try to keep up in heals is to cast their three second heals. (Also this only is doing calculations with just Acid Bomb and Fragmentation Grenade. I'm not including Napalm Grenade, Sticky Bomb, or Strafing Run and I'll include those numbers when I access those abilities and later write up a review in the future.)

Also, even if a healer does HoT everyone with a hot, you're consuming nearly all the healing in this hot. In other words, you're basically negating the effectiveness of hots on players from one healer source. Now they can hit targets with a one second pseudo heal and semi hot spell, but its 55 AP, and any player at any level only has a maximum AP pool of 250. If we look at it in terms of efficiency, healers need to spend twice the amount of AP healing my damage with their AoE heals, or 20% more AP hotting ONE person to heal my damage. That is not going to cut it for them. Especially since we're also considering a huge time contribution having to hot one target, wait 1.5 seconds, and then hot your next target. To hot a full team of 6 members will take nine seconds. Nine seconds of just casting nothing but hots on team members is a lot of time in which your team also can begin focus firing a target down. In other words, it just isn't feasiable or mathematically plausiable to be able to hot a full team at the same time if they want to heal a target who is taking heavy focus damage.

AoE dotting is a great benefit to your allies as they can stack damage on top of yours to out damage hot damage. The only way to realistically counter this is to have a second healer casting HoTs on everyone else to make up for your damage completely and start combating your team's damage as well.

The effectiveness of AoE dots that are readiable available to an engineer with their mobility and flexibility, and the ability to nullify HoTs from healers is invaulable. Also AoE dots for the amount of targets they can hit, compared to their AP cost are extremelly AP efficient. During the duration lay down some single target DPS with Gun Blast, Hip Shot, Incindiary Shells or Firebomb and you've got an absolute win/win situation here. No class has this kind of flexibility like an Engineer does on Order. Not even Bright Wizards using Detonate, they're forced to use Rain of Fire as well to get optimal damage for their combustion which requires them to sit there and channel it for ten seconds. You're basically doing two things at once if you time it well and manage AP.

If I really want to pressure people, I use my Grenades with Unshakable Focus and even when the duration ends, the dots get the 100% damage for their entire durations. This does ridiculawesome damage, and forces healers and people hit with it to panic. And this is just damage from me alone, think of what the other members on my team are doing and this adds up to easy kills. A good Engineer can really influence a battle heavily.

Interrupting the back line casters without Throwing Arm can sometimes be tricky. If you don't do it right you get blasted pretty easy. I try to use the terrain to pop out, lob a nade or two, then pop back in. If you pull it off its easy to see healers or RDPS get frustrated or scared and move a bit buying your team some time from their spells, but it does take some skill and timing to do it.

For the players who were interested in my rotation of abilities, it really depends on the Scenario. I usually open up on the front line with Acid Bomb then Fragmentation Grenade and then do the same on the back line. I find one squishy target after everyone is dotted and use Incendiary Rounds then Hip Shot then Gun Blast. Again, do not stand out in the open and become a target. Duck in and out, your damage output is directly variable to your survivability. Places such as these are perfect for throwing a grenade or two and then running back for cover.

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/4...ingspotez2.jpg ( A Hiding Spot)

Dying two or three times per scenario puts a huge dent in your output or performance in utility with the run back and time spent dead on the ground.

Most of this is simply playing by feel or instinct and knowing what is right in which situation. This can only be achieved through practice and experience in battle. Know what deals the most damage, and know how to survive situations. Even if you have a healer, its better when practicing to act as if you don't and that you must sustain your current life for as long as possible.

Level 18: Received Land Mine ability.

After training this, its application is actually quite useful as it can be used for both defense and offense. Defensively speaking it is great to throw on the ground in your front line or in the back lines with the healers since it will trigger when anyone gets near it. Any MDPS who try to sneak back by your healers will be knocked down for 2 seconds and breaking the element of surprise. Needless to say it helps your back row survive a lot longer.

Offensively, it does have a 65 foot range and if you see an opportunity drop it on a stacked caster line. There is nothing more that pisses them off, and gives your team a great opportunity to avoid a lot of damage or even to kill someone if you launch it on healers trying to out heal your team's single target DPS.

It deals "okay" damage, but I would definitely prefer the previous version which had no damage and a five second Knock down. But its still pretty useful and by all means if the Destro team lets you, abuse it to full effect.

Later, or even now if you have a good healer or take on small packs of monsters solo, this in conjunction with your turret and other grenades, is super useful for AoE grinding monsters for PQs or Kill quests. In Tier 4 it is debatable that the most efficient way to level is to sit outside of Dragonwake, soloing the endless Dark Elf PQ while que'd for SCs.

Tier three can be pretty effective too for AoE grinding as there are great PQs that offer a lot of melee mobs in Avelorn.

[Pierre Costals]

Level 19 and Solo Questing:

I took a small break from Scenarios after I finishing level 18 with Reikland Factory and decided I would quest a little bit with the final steps of the Heavy Metal event revealed today.

I threw my one extra spec point into Grenadier for the increased damage, and then I went out looking for monsters to kill that were part of my quest.

Soloing as an Engineer is decently simple and fast if you practice a bit.

Previously I would set up a gun turret for solo kills and a flame turret for two monsters or more.

I then stood from a distance, hit them with Acid Bomb then Gun Blast and ending Incendiary Rounds. I'd then spam FireBomb if it was only one target, or if It was multiples I would hit them with Friction Burn and spam Blunderbuss Blast until they died.

At level 19 the same strategy applies except for now you have land mine which you can plant either between you and the monster before pulling, or right on top of yourself. This gives you another two seconds to slap them with another FireBomb or Gun Blast before it is near you. With multiples it gives you some nice extra AoE damage and allows you to get off another Blunderbuss Blast or Flashbang Grenade without getting hit for those two seconds.

You can also use this strategy of pulling multiples with your Engineer and AoEing with a Healer. Get yourself a sturdy healer (have them stack Willpower, Wounds, Toughness, Initiative) and gather up those monsters!! Pulling is pretty easy and you can spam Acid Bomb on packs or solo creatures to pull. Make sure you are stacking the proper gear as well for PvE grinding/questing/PQs. Wounds, Toughness, Initiative, and Ballistics Skill are the stats you will want to focus on mostly for PvE. Also don't forget to change your gear back to your PvP set if you do go out and participate in Open RvR or Scenarios.

Level 19 you get Steady Aim which gives you Ballistic Skill. A good tactic.

Level 20 you get Concussion Grenade which is great for lobbing it at someone attacking a healer or yourself. This ability sometimes takes a second to activate after it hits so be sure to account for its delay.

Level 21 you receive Hand-Crafted Scope which increases your auto attack speed with guns by 50%. Great tactic to take if you're Rifleman spec, helps a lot with damaging squishy targets in RvR, and even in PvE if you have someone tanking for you.

At this level you also get Sticky Bomb which adds some more punch to your arsenal. This grenade is nice in the fact that its instant, deals moderate damage with its DoT portion, but also explodes dealing damage to everyone else around them. Overall a nice addition that should always follow after a Acid Bomb.

Tier 3 Avelorn:

After leveling to 22, I flew to Avelorn and picked up the RvR quests for killing 15 enemy players in Tor Anroc, and the Tor Anroc participation quest as well. Before RvRing though, you need to keep a few things in mind.

When I first entered Tor Anroc as Grenedier, its a bit different at first because you're at the lower end of the bracket, and you're going to need to be a lot more careful because of it. Not only that, scenarios like Tor Anroc have difficult terrain that forces you into the open against ranged and melee, to lob your grenades. Expect to get focus fired, a lot. Even when using the top if the bauble area, and the rocks around it as covered, its very easy to get knocked off, nuked, dotted, focused on, etc.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Level 22 is an odd level in the regards that you still have one more level until you can purchase your next ability in the Grenadier line which I'll talk about more below, called Throwing Arm. You can spec Rifleman to grind out the level if you absolutely want to Scenario the entire thing through, or you can stay Grenadier, head north from the Elven War camp and do the plethora of Quests in the PVE area.

I experimented with both and my personal opinion is that Rifleman simply isn't worth it at this level. Even in scenarios, I did not see a huge difference in damage from my gun, and the abilities you can get at this level are more or less "meh." I picked up Crack Shot and experimented with it a bit and found it lack luster at this level for several reasons. It has a two second cast and a minimal range which makes it impossible to cast on anyone (such as a Witch Elf) who is already in your face. Even if you use your Concussion Grenade, after snaring the target, it still doesn't throw them back far enough to get the two second cast off before they're back in your face again. You could root, and then cast it, but it wouldn't make much sense to since you want to get as much distance from someone who is rooted instead of sitting there shooting at them and risking the chance for root to break (if they haven't already done so with abilities like "fleet-footed", Juggernaut, etc.)

On the other hand Stopping Power is an amazing tactic, since it adds a knock back to your Hip Shot ability which does not trigger immunity. You can use Hip Shot then to knock back a player, followed by a concussion grenade to knock them back again. Keep in mind though, if the target already has knock back immunity on them, Hip shot will not knock them back. Wait for the immunity to wear off before using it again.

Also, you can attempt to use it on a melee who is killing one of your healers or ranged classes, but the cast time is so long that by the time it gets off, they have either already finished off your caster or they themselves have died. Overall, it just isn't worth it compared to other things you could spend your points on.

Questing as Rifleman just does not seem to be as effective as Grenadier. You can't AoE very well, and you have to have max range on every pull to lower the target's hit points enough so you don't take too much damage finishing it off in melee.

After testing I went back to Grenadier, stuck it out for the level doing quests in Avelorn and Scenarios in Tor Anroc. It really wasn't too bad getting through level 22, and if you also do the RvR Objective scouting quests the level tends to go by faster than expected.

At level 23, immediately, and I mean immediately respec out of Extra Powder and Sticky bomb and get Throwing Arm. You can pick up the other two abilities again in the next two levels, but this ability is an absolute must. With it your grenades can be thrown at a distance of 98 feet, which is only 2 feet short of magic spells. This gets you out of a ton of danger from having to play mid field to drop your grenades, and puts casters at a serious long distance threat of being interrupted and harassed. Not only that, it gives you a huge range to drop grenades on anyone else ensuring that you have a solid long range radius of constant damage to keep your dots fresh on every target available. Your survivability goes up and since its grants you such long range its only two steps back to be out of caster fire instead of thirty steps back and diving for some terrain cover. This ability is absolutely amazing and I can't stress how important it is a Grenadier to pick up this tactic first when you can purchase it.

You gain ancestral inheritance this level as well, but considering you'll already have Steady Aim and Throwing Arm slotted, it has to take a back seat until levels thirty plus.

When you hit level 24, pick up sticky bomb again. Its damage is important, and the aoe burst at the end helps as well. With sticky bomb you gain a noticeably greater amount of damage over the long term.

In respects to the claims of other people that have said Engineer falls down the spectrum and becomes less effective in tier three and four, I'm not seeing it. In fact, contrary to the claims I've only seen a vast improvement in my Engineer with the addition of throwing arm and other things we get as well. I've been competing against Bright Wizards, if not performing better damage wise and utility wise.

Also, my Engineer's damage only seems to be getting better and healers simply can't hot and forget my DPS. They have to focus on it, especially when I'm letting loose with morales, single targeting someone when they're low after bombarding them with grenades, or chain disrupting casts and knocking people down. Luckily I've also managed to supply a good number of Screen shots backing this, as well as finally editing a video for Tiers 3 and 2 to give players a better idea of how I'm playing my Engineer. In all of these scenarios I've been grouped with the pugs I come in contact with. Some DPS choose to solo to gain better renown and experience and while it is certainly possible for an Engineer to do this,it is not good practice and you're not helping players who also do their part, like healers and tanks, benefit from the Exp and Renown gain.

Tier 3 Highpass Cemetery Scenario:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4...ozym078cz0.jpg
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/9...ozym075ic7.jpg
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4...ozym077yz2.jpg

Tier 3 Tor Anroc Scenario:
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/360/boozym079rq1.jpg
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2...ozym082dq4.jpg
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2...ozym086kw0.jpg



I'm averaging a good amount of renown and experience per game (even from losses, and keep in mind that renown levels of enemies also effect gains) while being at the lower end of the spectrum in the Tiers. The only players to get a marginally greater portion of exp are the ones who are soloing (like the Sword Master in the Tor Anroc Screen shot), which again we're capable of but I would not do it.

My damage does fluctuate along the top five ranks. This is because I have multiple responsibilities for my class. Damaging, disrupting back line caster, knocking down and harassing tank charges, and protecting my team's back line is a task a lot of Ranged DPS, or classes in general are not responsible for or can even achieve on their own. Some games require more defensive than offensive tactics, so you will see a difference in damage depending on the situation. Engineer however, not only rises to the occasion, but in my opinion excels at it and has been extremely effective even while being in the lower end of the Tier.

Tier 3 Tor Anroc Movie:
Filefront
http://files.filefront.com/The+Tor+A.../fileinfo.html
Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhq3-EA3mIg
I've finally managed to upload the video of my game play from a match in Tor Anroc. I'm no pro, but some basic strategies and tactics can also be applied to every Engineer's game play. As always, I HIGHLY suggest downloading the movie since it is much, much, much better quality and you can actually see what is going on. I had a friend with me during this SC which helped out with the support. Also, for pug healers, the healers in the Scenario we're surprisingly good.

As one last note, I tried not to edit the movie too much since I wanted to give players an overall insight of the entire Scenario. I did however, add music for the gusto. Depending if I have requests to create more movies from the tiers, I will work on and post a tier two movie I have saved.

After Patch 1.06

1.06 has finally hit servers, and the effect it has had on Engineer damage was profound.
Ballistics skill now increased Grenade damage by a much, much larger margin. After running Tor Anroc twice, and not using my morales (forgot to equip them both times) I topped damage charts, killing blows, and even my solo kills matched that of other DPS classes. Not only that, in both situations we lost, they also had dedicated healers pumping heals into AoE specced Sorcs.

Tor Anroc T3:
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/6494/after106wv8.jpg
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/3...er106v2rc7.jpg

In short, we were buffed incredibly and while nice, I'm not sure if you could call it "necessary" considering what I've seen some Engineers do. This patch will make new Engineers who just joined the class who are maybe novice in skill appear to be good, and good players great. This is my first impression of the changes and I'll be sure to give more insight on it as I test other areas and effects that we received.

In a game we won where I actually used Morales, the damage was even higher in the same period of time. Unshakable Focus is now even better to use with your dots, abuse it.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/9637/106v4am9.jpg
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/7838/after1063ox3.jpg

I also participated in some Open RvR in Avelorn, and dueled a level 29 Shaman and Black Orc. While I died, the Shaman's hots could not keep up with my dots, and he was forced to spam his 2.5 second heal to offset the damage. In otherwords, I was a crediable threat damage wise.

However, when Squig Herders, and other DPS classes have good players behind them in the future, they'll be able to put out like numbers as well with this patch. So there is a good chance we're only breaking even with other Ranged DPS classes.

I hit Level 27 and gave strafing run a go. After testing I did not see a good use for the ability since the knock back, while aoe, only knocks people away 5-10 feet from you and is hardly noticeable. Even though the damage was decent at best, I simply don't see spending a specialization point on this ability worth it at the time being.

At this level, if you find yourself getting burned out on Scenarios, there is another great option to level as well. Avelorn and Saphery hold some of the best grinding PQs available at this level, and it is quite easy to rack up at least 130k experience per hour if you grab a decent healer to aoe with. My personal preference is to grab a Warrior Priest since their medium armor and fast casting heals (touch of the divine and divine assault) make them the perfect healers to heal under pressure if agro switches to them. My other half who plays a 27 Warrior Priest and I were able to chain pull monsters five to six at a time without stopping. The experience per hour was a decent bit higher than running scenarios non stop even with constant pops so I suggest PQ grinding while queing for scenarios to not burn yourself out on either one. My favorite PQ is located in the bottom of Saphery, The Iltilmar Tower. Here you can go to the top of the mountain and chain pull the orange Zealots and demons there which have a very fast respawn rate. Also this PQ is great because there are only three stages, and both stage one and two do not have champions in them. Perfect for grinding.

After hitting Level 29 you have another decision to make. At this level it is possible to gain access to Napalm Grenade if you give up throwing arm and sticky bomb. Napalm is amazing for PQ grinding and will net you some serious experience if you go to a t4 area such as Etaine and grind the monsters there. I situated myself just south of the Knobler field by the tower with Ogres and chain pulled 3-4 ogres mixed with Knoblers the entire time. Each kill at this level gives you 493 to 503 experience and my tracker was reading about 124k experience per hour, solo. I'm going to try it out later today with a healer and see if I can't net even more with bigger pulls even though the experience will be diminished a bit.

I did have a chance to try out Serpent's Passage a few times, and overall it wasn't too bad. You can definitly feel the loss of throwing arm though, which will effect you taking damage a lot since you'll be closer to the melee lines again. It is however, hillarious if your team is losing but also manages to get the part to your side. We had an Ironbreaker bring the part over to the cart where he died (and the part fell) and the entire game was pretty amusing since I dropped napalm on it for the rest of the game. Needless to say, it makes it impossible for any destruction to pick it up, making you a huge annoyance and wracking you up damage at the same time as you stress healers. Save your morales especially for people unwise enough to actually move out of the aoe, since unshakable focus or even better, explosive shots work with each tick of napalm and melts them and the rest of their team that they're close to. After about five minutes destruction pretty much just gave up on the part after a handful of people who had died to the dot (I was hitting for 352-400 per tick after using acid to debuff their resistances on the last 10 seconds of the ability) learned to stay out of it.

I also had a chance to use it on the back rows forcing healers or casters to move, or using it defend my back line healers by throwing it down and keeping Witch Elves from using their openers on my healers. Overall, napalm, great ability that defines the class. Pick it up.


About AoE grinding at and after levels 29+: Aoe grinding with Napalm Grenade is very simple and does not require your to change your tactics much. You'll want to first put down a Napalm field then build a turret in the middle. Run around gathering mobs and lead them back into the middle of the field. Apply your AoE dots, and use Blunderbuss to finish them off the rest of the way. If you get low on health, self destruct your turret to buy you the extra five seconds you need to burn them down or run, and you should be on your way to big experience gains. Its also optional to throw in a mine if you wish, but I typically do not since the immunity is shared with self destruct which is a much better knock down.

Level 30 is your happy level. You can have both Napalm Grenade and Throwing Arm slotted with an additional tactic spot to use for whatever you wish. I personally chose Ancestral inheritance for extra armor since I don't really have anything else amazing to get. You could use hand-crafted scope as a viable alternative if you don't like the armor buff from ancestral.

Also you gain Signal Flare which is another massive dot to your already huge armada. It has a twenty second cooldown and rightly so, it packs one heck of a wallop. Use this to increase your dot damage to a single target by a large amount.

You do however, now have the flexibility to grind PQs and PVE, or to switch to RvR without changing specializations or tactics. In future levels, you can now choose to grab Sticky Bomb (recommended) and Bandolier (optional) before moving out of the grenadier line, or ignore them and start working towards Well Oiled Machine in tinkerer which will help your survivability out greatly against melee who jump you (witch elves), or start working towards rifleman to increase your single target DPS since Signal flare and incendiary rounds are both rifleman specialized abilities.

Levels 31-32 Is up completely to the player to choose how they want to level. I leveled almost primarily on Open RvR, soloing and joining Warbands for keep takes until level 32. This is great practice to begin to learn how to kite players in conjunctions with your knock backs and knock downs.

As a grenadier Engineer you will really see a huge effectiveness in your ability to defend and take keeps with Napalm and your grenades which allow you to damage players from hard to reach line of sight spots giving you an advantage.

Between these levels it is also good to try out the other specializations while you're at it. I tried both Rifleman and Tinkerer in open rvr and even in the T4 scenario, Serpents passage.

Tinkerer seems to be pretty effective with a solid group, and at higher level may even be viable solo if you sub specialize into grenadier. I tried out Well oiled machine and I personally have nothing to say but amazing things about this tactic. It allows you so much more survivability when a melee class attacks you or your party members, and when used in conjunction with a tanks AoE knock back after knocking down your targets, it is an amazing assist train derailer. Electromagnet can be used the same way for derailing assist trains, but if you are not setup correctly and use your turret to knock them down after pulling them in, you will be in a world of hurt.

[Pierre Costals]

At later levels, it is possible to go into Tinkerer for Tracer Rounds and then applying the rest of your points into one of the other lines. This gives your dots or attacks a much higher chance to crit, and overall is a great way to increase your burst damage, becoming a viable solo spec as well.

Rifleman overall was interesting, but at this level its still not viable to spec, especially being so low in the last tier before you. Later on I can see this being a decent solo dps spec, and one definitly work subing into if you wanted to stay grenadier or tinkerer for your main specialization.

I reached Level 33 by questing and PQ grinding mostly in Eataine. All of the PQs here are great for grinding, in particular the Ogres and Knoblers on the right side of the map in Elf Chapter 15, and the spirits and undead on the left side which is Elf Chapter 16. Chapter 16 is also a great PQ to pickup a brand new gun with excellent RvR stats. I would highly suggest grinding this PQ chapter for the weapon as it will serve you a few good levels. After hitting level 33, head to Dragonwake and pickup the Serpent's Passage quest and the complimentary kill quest along with it before heading out to the Dark Elf PQ (the PQ which the dragon and the spires, I'll update the exact name soon) and kill the endless Dark Elves there. If you don't kill all the pillars surrounding the dragon, the dark elves will never cease to spawn giving you the ability to pull groups of at least 3 at a time. Their levels range from 34 to 35, and another camp of dark elves across the road have level 35 to 36 enemies. Needless to say you'll be here for a while if you don't want to quest.

Serpents Passage T4 Screenshots:

Even though I just entered the tier, I feel pretty useful already. At this point I still don't see any of the claims that Engineer wanes in its leveling career as grenadier, or any specialization really. Granted, winning and losing have a lot to do with your "numbers", and by all means do not judge your class or others by the scoreboards since this is an improper way to get an accurate gauge of their abilities.

I'm pretty excited to see what later levels hold for me, specifically level 40 when I receive all of my abilities and am able to spec into all the talents I wish. Overall though, I've only had positive experiences with my Engineer, and the class is definitely a heavy contributor to the effectiveness and potency of your team.

Also remember that your ability to deal damage and survive is based on a large part to your level and gear. Even after you're bolstered, you're only effectively a level 36. This means that your damage will be greatly mitigated against level 40 players, and they will also deal more damage to you (a great deal more.) If you're feeling disheartened, and stating to question the effectiveness of your Engineer end game, just remember that you get a whole lot better the higher you level and your sense of damage capabilities compared to other tiers will return as well. Just hang in there, I questioned it myself too for a bit, but after finally getting closer to 40 (I'm 38 at the moment) I've seen a vast improvement in my damage with my levels, and the gear you receive helps this a lot as well. Don't lose faith!

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7/boozy024dk5.jpg
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4851/boozy030tk1.jpg
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/3269/boozy032ms8.jpg


Don't feel bad if the scenario goes badly and you are farmed at your spawn. Trust me, its not just you. Also, our mirror class, Magus, can put up some pretty decent numbers too, despite a lot of claims. I've seen a good number of Magus that either top the scoreboards, or are dead last and a lot of it seems to be based on the individual player's skill along with the addition of having an organized team or not. Overall, their class seems decent as well.

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/1781/boozy029yv0.jpg

Serpents Passage is a great scenario, or a bad one depending on which team has the upper hand. Overall, talking from an experience point of view, you'll get much better experience rates grinding PQs or questing. The renown at a low level however, is amazing and if you're dragging behind in renown levels compared to your ranking level you should be running scenarios to keep them as close as possible for when you hit forty. Many people ignore this, but its a lot easier to level up renown while you're lower level since you're gaining experience for your main rank and your renown rank at the same time. Also with addition to the changes in regards to renown gain, they will also be factoring opposing character rank level into the equation as well. Keep this in mind if you are just going to PQ grind entirely to forty.

I managed to hit level 35 early last morning by only doing the quests in Dragonwake, and this was a pretty significant level. I invested four spec points into the Tinkerer tree for Well-Oiled Machine. While many Engineers agree that this talent is not necessary, in my opinion it justifies its tactic spot. We'll leave the fact that your turrets become much easier to deploy with the instant cast rate for their damage, that is just gravy. The real benefit to this ability is the fact that you can use it to knock melee off of your Engineer and get away when used in conjunction with Self Destruct. Witch Elves especially despite this ability after they jump you out of stealth. If you practice, they become a much easier fight due to this tactic alone since it gives you the ability to CC them almost the entire duration of Enfeebling Strike and keep them out of your face long enough to kite after it drops.

Here is what your ability cycle should look like after a Witch Elf pops on you out of stealth with Enfleebling on you. This lineup can be used even if they drop On your Knees on you to attempt to burst you down. Just keep your cool and you'll be alright:

Turret -> Self Destruct -> Concussion -> Dot her up -> Detaunt -> Concussion again as soon as its up. Enfleebling has worn and you're free to kite.

There is the alternative option of concussing her before hitting self destruct. If you do it immediately you can knock her down mid flight buying you another second's time. However, this does mean she is in your face for a longer period of time due to set backs and I generally would not suggest it.

A few last things that is very nice about this ability is that you can derail assist trains much easier now by casting it on your healers, instead of having to redeploy on top of them which isn't always effective. You can also use the tactic to place turrets as you run leaving a nasty surprise for pursuers as you Self Destruct it to buy your team time to retreat.

Also if you feel bold enough, if you ever find yourself in a 1v1 situation, you can use this ability to knock down Sorcerers, Magus, Squigs, keeping them close to you while also keeping them from casting.

Overall, I love this ability, its uses are varied, versatile, and effective. Definitely worth its tactic slot.

After reaching maximum rank, I've been debating on taking the hip shot tactic to add a knock back to the shot due to the lack of an overly good tactic to fill the slot (coordinated fire and mine tactic are both still broke.)

This could use used in a pinch to knock people off of targets faster, or be used to kite better since you won't need to stop.

Level 36-40 you can level whichever way you choose. There are quests, ORvR, scenarions, PQ grinding, etc. The most effective for your time is PQ grinding, even though it is mind dulling at times. I've leveled the majority of the way by PQ grinding which breaks in between to scenario or rvr. There are some great PQs (The Might of Ulthuan, Elf Chapter 22 - Sorcerers to the left of the gates respawn near instantly), especially if you have a group that you can grind for at least 240-250k+ experience per hour.

And that pretty much sums it up folks. I managed to hit forty decently fast AoEing and throwing in some quests and scenarios to break up the monotiny and I finally made it. I've noticed a huge different in damage as soon as I hit 40, and with focus fire you start becoming a bursting threat as well on top of your grenade damage. It is very well possible to skip out on Napalm, and just split the points between Grenadier and Rifleman (after getting the 4 into tinkerer for WOM) to increase your damage even more. I'm tempted to do this, but I love Napalm for its ability to defend positions on the map or in keeps, so I might just keep it after all, we'll have to see.

Also I grabbed the Stopping Power tactic as my fourth tactic since its knock back does NOT trigger immunity allowing you to knock back the target a second time with concussion grenade. I have noticed however, that if knock back immunity is already on the target, hip shot will not knock the target back, so keep this in mind.

I'll be reformatting this guide, adding more screen shots soon with information, as well as adding contributions from our other members in a special section and going through my information and adding/updating certain tactics.

Thanks for sticking with me the entire way and I'll leave you with my first Scenario as forty. We may have lost but I'm very impressed with the Engineer as a class. Trust me, its worth every moment of it whether you're Rifleman, Tinkerer, or Grenadier, you wont be let down.

Caledor Woods T4 Scenario:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2332/boozy051rg4.jpg


Level 40 attained at 6:53 Am, Arizona time, January 1, 2009.

[Pierre Costals]

Additional Engineer Information And Links:

There are many players in our community who help and provide information on the Engineer class. Here are a few suggested links that may just improve your game experience and play style with their information.

GAFCaster's Warhammer Blog and GAFcast site:
http://www.grabafriend.info/war/

Thank you to Primarch Lobo for the link to The Kitchen Philosopher, a discussion on Ballistic Skill versus Weapon Skill:
http://thekitchenphilosopher.blogspo...tic-skill.html

Primarch Lobo's Lone Ranger, Rifleman/Tinkerer Guide to Leveling:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=219529

Xeir's Engineer Influence Reward Listing:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=167276

Deraged's Useful Engineer Add-Ons:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=225967

Queeble's Engineer Kiting 101:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=224416

Avien's Link Listing for Engineer Abilities, Tactics, Morales, and Renown and Mastery Builder:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=56944

Garthilk's Engineer Description Link:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ead.php?t=6004

Wardb's complete database:
http://www.wardb.com/

[Pierre Costals]

A List of Useful Mods:

All mods here and many more can be found at www.curse.com.

Buffhead
Action Bar Color
BlackBox
DieBuffsDie
KillingBlow
Moth
Squared
WarhammerScrolling Combat Text
Anywhere Trainer

[Highglandeur]

excellent,si jamais y avait un courageux pour traduire ca fairait des heureux ^^

[sauvagefoxy]

Ca risque de prendre pas mal de temps, mais oui pourquoi pas. Je commence le week-end prochain.

[Nimz]

Citation :

Publié par Highglandeur

excellent,si jamais y avait un courageux pour traduire ca fairait des heureux ^^

Est ce que ca vaut vraiment la peine de se donner tant de mal?! La première partie de l'article par exemple, n'explique pas grand chose. Il explique juste son feeling avec l'ingé et le dps qu'il fait. Cela dit, faire un tel dps n'est pas compliqué... il suffit de spammer la grenade aoe dot Vous observerez que faire le plus gros dps du bg n'aide pas toujours à le gagner ;p

De plus, tout le tralala des premiers paragraphes concerne l'ingé d'avant le patch 1.1!

Je pense que l'article le plus interessant à traduire est celui qui est mis en lien utiles, concernant le kitting avec un ingé! Pas mal dutout ce qu'il raconte, bien que ca parais plutot compliqué à retenir. Tes cooldown t'imposent le rythme de toute manière, et le feeling avec cette classe ne se fait qu'a partir du moment ou tu as trouvé les outils nécessaires à tenir un peu de distance face à tes oposants.

En Bg et en wb rvr ouvert, le kitting n'es pas l'arme absolue pour te faire plaisir puisque tu es rarement seul. Il suffit juste d'avoir la détente rapide sur ton racourcis barbelé / bump et de bouriner un bon coup

Mon péché minion c'est le balancage de dot intempestif, surtout pour réduire la rés phys de celui que tu vas poutrer dans la seconde, ensuite du canarde à la grenade qui fait du dégat direct ( les noms de sorts et moi ca fait deux ) des que le gars est à 20% boum, tu lui enchaine un tir sans visée (encore une fois sorry pour le nom approximatif) normalement c'est ton ptt execut, si il fait le résistant, tu fais le tir de zone, qui est en instant aussi et ca devrait être bon! Si il se fait heal, tu remet une tournée Les healers ont du mal avec ca, car leurs rénov sont diminués avec tes dots, et caster un gros heal c'est juste bon pour te laisser le temps de l'achever!

En 1v1 je garde le même cycle, en incluant le barbelé et les deux bump.
(sans oublier les tourelles, mais je les garde généralement en mode agressif et aoe, pour embeter le reste du bus)



PS: il est sans doute utile de préciser que je ne suis que lvl 21, je m'amuse comme un fou et mon dok 40 est au placard!


ah oui, y'a aussi le lien des reward qp qui est cool. ( DCH5 = nain ch5, HCH5= elfes ch5 et ECH5= empire ch5 ) je précise parceque j'ai mis un peut de tps avant de tilter

[sauvagefoxy]

Il y a un guide de l'ingénieur pas mal du tout dans cette section donc tout compte fait je ne pense pas que cette traduction soit nécessaire.