Engineer PvP
Tough But Rewarding
Welcome to my guide on the current state of Engineers in PvP. Upon my return I was super excited about PvP and could not wait to get started. However, I was instantly bombarded with everyone telling me not to bother because Engineers were broke and unplayable. This was rather disappointing to hear but it did not phase me. In any game, I usually choose the worst class and attempt to make it work (Or even make it awesome!). The challenge is the exciting part. No one expects you to do well, because you are a "broken" or "gimp" class. So when you do well, you take the world by storm. That being said, I decided to write this guide in an effort to motivate and maybe assist other Engineers not to give up! You may not win them all, but you can definitely give it your all!
Mindset:
The first thing you must work on to PvP as an Engineer is your mindset. NEVER concentrate on your Kill/Death ratio. NEVER stop dueling someone to save your score. Who cares if you lose 5 in a row to someone? If you quit dueling right then, you will cease to get better. You must take PvP as a learning experience and thrive to learn as much as possible. If this takes dying to the same person 30 times in a row, so be it! I guarantee you the 30th death will be a much better fight than the first. That is because you slowly learn throughout the fights. This ties into my next point on mindset:
Strategy: To do well as an Engineer you MUST have a good strategy for each fight. The fact is, we are broken at the moment. We cannot rush in and headbutt our skills to win (Unless it is against a player who is not fit for PvP). Have a solid idea in mind on how you will win each fight. If it fails horribly, change it slightly for the next fight. You HAVE to constantly adapt to get better. This includes adapting your skills and equipment as well. Every single person might require a different setup to beat. But I will go more into that later.
Stats:
First of all, I want to go over one of the most widely overlooked aspects of Engineer builds, STATS. Since we are already struggling to win fights, every.single.point helps! This is where stats come into play. 99% of Engineers max out Intelligence and then forget about it. Why? When everyone goes nuts over equipment that adds a few points here and there, why not do the same with stats? The great thing about modifying them, is that you get to choose where these extra points go. Below is a picture of the best options in my mind, I have highlighted the two that I feel are best for PvP:
Attachment 3855
Now you should be able to see where the strong points are. Straight intelligence is probably the second worse, right in front of straight dex. It does have the highest DPS, but the loss of dodge/hit%/and HP does not make it worth it in my eyes. My two favorite stat setups are straight STRENGTH or a mix of STR/INT.
Straight Strength: This setup has the benefit of the highest hit %! This means a lot against a world full of dodgers! an entire 5% gain vs Int! That is almost like an extra hit % implant. Next, you will see that our crit stays the same, BUT we gain an extra point of dodge. Dodge is probably THE best stat for PvP, so every point helps. Add to that, the 20 extra hit points and I feel that outweighs the 9 pt DPS loss (The armor gain is negligible).
STR/INT: Here we have my second favorite stat build. The best of both worlds! The same extra dodge point as the STR build...a middle ground of hit%, and DPS. and a 10 hitpoint gain over INT build. The only reason I do not use this, is because I feel that the extra hit % and the 20 extra HP's of the STR build outweigh the DPS gain. But regardless, I think it goes without saying that this is much better than the intelligence build as well.
This are just my opinions, and many of you may feel that INT is still the best route (Or maybe even that these points do not matter), but as I said before, every point matter for engineers in PvP. Look over the benefits of each stat build and choose what is right for you and your setup.
SKILLS:
I have probably wasted around 100 plat just in stat and skill resets this week. I am constantly thriving to find the absolute best build for PvP. I realized after the first 50 deaths that defense and damage mitigation was our best strength. It does not matter how much damage you can do, or how fast you can do it, you still die too fast to get a reliable amount of wins. Throughout all of my testing, there has been one build that has given me the best results. Full Defense. Every single point of damage mitigation increases your chances of success. Here is the skill build I ended up with, that I have learned to love above all others.
Attachment 3856
The most important thing to note about this build, is that Empathy, Force Shield, and Protection are all maxed. As I stated before, every single point of damage mitigation increases your success rate. In this regard, the armor buff from Protection is essential...the short term armor buff from Force shield is essential...and for everyone, healing from empathy is a no brainer.
The next most important thing, is your CC (crowd control). You will lose most of your fights, if you do not quickly learn how to use Pain and Suppression to let you heal a bit, or even as a damage mitigation tool! You have no clue how many times I popped someone with Pain and skirted outside of their range, just in time to waste a heavy hitting skill of theirs. Successfully doing this can almost solidify your win (But it is not easy!). Now, I only have 1 point into Pain, because the damage increase with each skill rank seemed negligible for the waste of each additional points. You need only the ability to stun from this skill. Suppression is probably your best friend. But just like pain, you only really need 1 point in it to be successful. I have 2 just for 3v3 fights. Suppression is your number one tool for keeping someone away from you for at least 6 seconds and wasting their buffs.
Last but not least, what good is the ability to survive and control your opponent, if you cannot kill them?? In this regards, DoT's are our best friend. Go ahead and max out (or if you are lower level, raise each to 4-5), each DoT. Wither, Leech, and Decay. These are not only DoT's, but they also have some nice benefits. Leech, while in effect, will also heal you for around 50 HP. Decay, while in effect, will lower the opponents armor class. So do not neglect these skills.
Skills are important, but it is not the only piece of the puzzle. Skills, stats, Equipment and Strategy all go into making you a good Engineer.
EQUIPMENT:
I understand that not all people can afford plat, or have the credits to buy the best weapons, but in this guide I will cover ONLY the best, because if you do not have the best, you will fail miserably.
As mentioned previously, there is not a single setup that will work against everyone. Every single OP/Comm/Engi has slightly different play styles or builds that require us to constantly adapt to have a chance against them. In this regard I strongly suggest you have a plethora of implants/armors/weapons/shields to tinker with. Also, you will want to set up an equipment profile for all of your favorite/most successful builds. For PvP, you will want to focus on the following things (Not necessarily in order). Dodge; DPS; Max Damage; Hit Points; Armor Class; Hit %, and Crit.
These tend to be the most influential stats and your builds will usually focus on only 1 or 2 of them at a time. Next, I will show you my favorite profiles:
FULL DODGE BUILD:
When I first started PvP, I went into it gunning for the most dodge possible (and many still do this). Currently, as an Engineer, I have only been able to get up to 40 dodge, WHICH IS AWESOME. However, the sacrifices I had to make to get that 40 dodge...makes it not really worth it. I may dodge a lot of hits, but my armor and hit points are so low, that the hits that DO land end up slaughtering me fast. I have quickly disregarded this build for 1v1 duels, but I still use it in capture the flag sometimes (Speed + 40 dodge + run for flag = nice). This build relies on the follow things: Full set of Plat armor, Plat Heavy Pistol, Dodge Implant, the Polar Elf Shield, and a full STR or STR/INT hybrid stat build. All these combined leaves you at 40 Dodge, but really hurting on all other fronts. Use cautiously:
Attachment 3858
DODGE/DAMAGE HYBRID BUILD:
Through all of my testing, this has ended up being my absolute favorite build. It doesn't work against everyone, but it accounts for nearly all of my wins. This build is essentially a dodge build, but sacrifices a few points of dodge for a lot of extra damage. With this build, you will use the following: Full plat armor, Nova Blaster, Condor Damage Implant, Blackstar Shield, and a full STR stat build. This setup will leave you with around 29 dodge (still awesome), but a nice damage output, armor class, and hit points! I would strongly recommend trying it out.
Attachment 3860
FULL DAMAGE:
In my constant quest to find the best strategy for PvP, I have learned that you constantly have to throw your opponent off. You cannot do the same thing every single time and expect them not to adapt. They know Engineers...They know how to kill Engineers..and if something you do ends up working, they are going to strive to keep that from happening again. This is where the build comes into play. Every now and then I like to slip them a surprise for fun. NOTE: This build has not gotten many many wins, but it can be fun to throw in for a fight or two. It's pretty much a focus on the most hit% and Damage you can get, without any defense. With this build, from the time you auto-attack - land three DoT's - Pain - then run away, you should have them at least halfway dead. The damage output is crazy, you just have to avoid any damage like the plague with kiting. For this build you will need: Full Custom Gear, Plat Sniper Rifle, Condor Damage Implant, NO SHIELD (bah! two handers), and a STR or STR/INT stat build.
Attachment 3861
STRATEGY:
I will not drone on and on about different strategies here, because there is not just one strat that works 100% of the time. You, like every other aspect of this guide, will have to adapt this for every single person you fight. However, there are a few core strategies that apply to everything. These I will cover.
Skills you want to keep running at all times:
Empathy, Force Shield, and Protection. These skills you will want to use at the very start of a fight to maximize the benefits and increase your chance of using them again during the fight. The sooner you use Force Shield, the better.
Pain/Suppression:
It is very easy to spam these skills out of desperation, but if you can, try not to! For example..
Suppression will give you 6 full seconds of running away/healing. But what happens if you use it while a DoT is running on the opponent? A slight pause and then the DoT breaks the mez! So wasteful, when you could have waited a few seconds to get a full 6 second breather! Not only this, but if you see your opponent stack on a variety of Engie-Killing buffs, your best bet is to hit them with suppression and back out of their range. Most buffs that kill us, only last a short period of time. Having them out of range for 6 seconds will completely waste Blur and put a hurting on almost all awesome buffs of other classes.
In the same regard, Pain is great because it is a stun AND does some damage. A lot of Engie's spam Pain as soon as it is available just for the extra damage, but to maximize it's effects, you will want to make sure the timing is right. For example: If you are kiting right on the edge of an opponents range, you can use pain and quickly dart out of range to heal/waste their combos. But what happens if you use pain on top of an opponent? You briefly cause them to stop moving, but you will not get out of their range by the time the stun is over. Try to only use Pain when you have a little distance.
The PRIMARY goal of both Pain and Suppression should be to get away from your opponent, Heal, and to waste their buffs! Do not just smash them with no direction!
Damage Over Time Skills:
And now our bread and butter. We may not have the highest DPS...We may do crappy damage... But I guarantee you, the damage we inflict after stacking our three DoT's and adding weapon damage to it, is amazing! With the right build, There are not many people that can survive three rotations of our DoT's. A lot of people will die to two rotations! But the downside to these, is that they WILL break your suppression, and they require a little time. As much as possible, you want to be out of range of your opponent and let the DoT's work their magic. You want to keep these going as much as possible, but you will need to pause every now and then for a Suppression escape!
An Example Fight:
-Both parties say GO!
-Engie uses Protection/Force Shield/Empathy and begins to run in
-As soon as Engie gets into range, he uses Suppression and backs away right as the opponent buffs up
-Engie stares at the opponent, dancing as his buffs waste away
-Suppression ends, and both parties rush toward each other
-Engie hits Empathy again
-Engie enables auto-attack and hits pain as soon as he is in range to stop the opponent in his tracks
-Engie keeps full range during stun and stacks on all three DoT's
-Engie runs like a madman and hits Empathy as soon as it is up again.
-Engie uses tries to catch opponent with another suppression and back way to waste any buffs running again
-Engie stares and dances
-Suppression ends and Engie runs in with Empathy/Auto-Attack again.
-Engie uses Pain at the edge of range again
-Engie stacks all three Dot's again
-Engie runs again
-Engie hits Force Shield again
-Repeat
That is just an example fight. Of course it doesn't play out like that, because you have to take into consideration the use of the opponents crowd control and such. But that is the normal game plan. If you manage to stick closely to that order of operations, it is possible to win fairly often. Doing it, is the trick.
Final Thoughts:
No, we are not fully functional at the moment. No we are not the best class to PvP with. And yes, we will get killed a lot. But we CAN win, and when we do it is a great reward and points to a lot of hard work and effort on our part.
“I do not believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be. “ Ken Venturi
