Engineer's Skills, which to focus on and which to map?

[IanJones]

I'll get you a pic of my skill arrangement. When it comes to engies, I know a lot of good tips and tricks.

I'll be patiently waiting to hear about all of them and see the pics!

Mitchturbo, I definitely like to attack so I want to be an offensive engineer and help heal on the side. Why only 1 level on Pain? Is it not that good of a skill? What's the best offensive skills then? You say you are a stun specialist, is that your go-to skill?

[Mitchturbo]

I'll be patiently waiting to hear about all of them and see the pics!

Mitchturbo, I definitely like to attack so I want to be an offensive engineer and help heal on the side. Why only 1 level on Pain? Is it not that good of a skill? What's the best offensive skills then? You say you are a stun specialist, is that your go-to skill?

Yup, pain is a brilliant skill, handy to use on snipers in the volaria lvls (lvl 34 and up) but after you add one point on pain, its really not worth spending the rest of your points on, the upgrades to the skill only add a few damage points, which can be used on higher hitting engineer skills. The stun time still remains the same lenth of a few secs.
I call myself the Stun specialist because ive mastered the art of the most underestimated engineer skill... suppression. Which I can use to good effect. The secret is (if your planning on using it, lvl all the way to 6 points) to use it before you or anyone else engages in combat with a mob group. It will paralize six enemies at a time depending if they are all in range whereas you can then focus all of your attacks on one enemy at a time, picking them off one by one like an op. The problem with suppression is once someone paralyzed is hit, the spell over em is broken, so using while others have engaged or in the middle of a heated mob battle is a no no... Just wont work and will infuriate tour fellow team mates, as using the skill deactivates auto attack of everyone near you. Engineers using it like that have given the skill a bad rep... But when soloing lvls like some do it becomes an engineers handiest skill.

Also as an offensive engineer (comeng) you should avoid putting points on protection and force shield... Why, because even with all them maxed out, the amount of offense you'll be giving out will make em void due to engineers causing more aggro than comandos do.
The force shield breaks after 75+ damage, which will be one hit by the time you can run volaria, enimies cause 80+ damage regulary then and protection, maxed out only offering 60+ armour to everyone is useless. An extra 60 armour is nothing at all lol.

Instead focus the rest of your points on offensive skills like Decay, Wither, leech, transference. Up to you if you want to include sonic boom but the long refresh rate is a joke even contemplateing putting a point on. As is the tiny amount of damage it gives out lol.

Hope these personal tips have helped you in some way.

[IanJones]

Awesome post Mitch! Thanks a lot! When you refer to ComEng, is that character 100% STR or still 100% INT with just a focus on attacking?

You wrote Decay, With, Leech, and Trans when you said offensive skills, so you probably don't have any points on Pain or Sonic Boom do you? You want to level those other 4 out.

[Chloe]

Awesome post Mitch! Thanks a lot! When you refer to ComEng, is that character 100% STR or still 100% INT with just a focus on attacking?

You wrote Decay, With, Leech, and Trans when you said offensive skills, so you probably don't have any points on Pain or Sonic Boom do you? You want to level those other 4 out.

Hi, I have a 41 eng, and run with Mitch alot. This "Eng / Comeng" thing he's referring to is about what you see your role as. Whichever role you like to play more (full-out support, run ahead first, etc..), you're still going to have decent armor and decent DPS. For either role, you have to have Both heal skills at 6, rev at least at 1, and Pain no higher than 1.

Then, like mitch said, the rest of the skills will be chosen based on play style. He likes to "tank" (or in PL, be like a 'bear') and solo (he can solo Thyra, the last boss in the game), in that way, he's more like a paladin (if you played WoW, this helps you, if not, then ignore). So his skills are different than say, mine. I like to sit back and full support (I'm more like a disc priest, again, if not a WoW player, ignore). But both of us can do both roles if needed.

As far as where to put your attribute points, All Int . There is very little payoff for putting points in anything else compared to the massive loss in DPS that you take by not putting it all in INT.