New Engineer Class
So, I saw the new class has dropped. Has anyone picked it up? What's it like?
I love the flavour but wanted to hear others' thoughts on the mechanics before making any serious investment.
I love the flavour but wanted to hear others' thoughts on the mechanics before making any serious investment.
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That being said, we have two items in the game which will allow you to try out the Engineer class at a very low cost of 5-15 credits. We have the 'ethereal mirror' which lets you mirror someone's skills for 8 hours. So if they switch classes, you will to. We also have a 'green capsule' which will allow you to trans all your skills for 24 hours. Since engineer is a neutral class, apprentice at a Dean or Cobham and then eat the capsule. Keep in the 8 hour and 24 hour timer will continue to tick if you are not logged in.
@Galt might be an engineer you can mirror off of and currently there is a mirror on the promo market for 10 credits.
You say, "My bottle is empty."
Jeremy raises an eyebrow questioningly.
Jeremy slaps you on the cheek.
As for complexity, I think this is because it has some new mechanics Imperian has not used that will take a little while to get used to. It does offer a wider range of ways to work on killing other players. Curing is simple as you just have to dig out shots and eat domecap, but chem afflictions will force you to make decisions. Of course, we will be watching things to see how it plays out and make adjustments as needed.
After tooling around for the full period in beta and providing input, I feel it would be in the best interest of the game for me to release a quick Primer on how to get off the ground as an Engineer. This is by no means comprehensive.. there are things I don't want to share, there are assuredly things I have yet to think of or test in a practical environment. With that being said, I would like to make sure I impart my knowledge to our would-be artificers of the Neutral variety - it'll be more fun that way:
Points of complexity
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Here's the short and small of it: this class is actually not that complex. There's only really two areas of nuance:
1. Trickshots and your management of them; the effects are so strong that just spamming one (namely, Spleenshot or Numbshot) is OK, so lazy or inexperienced people can still contribute effectively in teams.
2. Chemicals and your management of them; once again, the effects are strong enough, alongside the cure taking toadstool balance, that you can stay on the easy side of things with damage chemicals and do fine. The chemical list is specifically designed to be effects that let you progressively dip your toes further in to the PK Pool; damage is easy and requires no input.. once you reach a 'wall' and start losing to people, you will need to learn from your mistakes and ask what in your kit can help.
I know that the class looks complicated, what with bullet types.. but here's the Golden Rules for that:
1. If you want an effect from Focus shot to stick longer, use heavy shot. It is guaranteed to last longer. If you wish some more precise data on timing/damage/etc, speak to me privately.
2. If you want to go faster/shoot faster, use lightshot. Be aware that lightshot on Focus skillshots will be a shorter dig out time.
3. If you want to deliver a chemical without using Snapshot, use hollowshot.
4. Otherwise, just use mushroom shot.. it follows the same numbers as certain other shots, with a lower damage, but a much higher bleed value. The bleed will be effective health and mana damage.
Ballistics
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Ballistics is your straightforward, shoot things list of skills. The truth is that Ballistics is easier to digest once you realize one thing: Ballistics attacks mostly work on a sliding scale of speed to damage.
You've got QuickShot (qshot) which is high speed, low dmg.
You've got normal shot, which is in between.
You've got FocusShot(fshot) which is high damage, low speed.
You've got RazingShot(rshot), which strips both shield and rebounding in one go at a very fast speed.
The rest of the shots have their niche place, but overall those are your four bread and butter, 'costs balance' attacks. You will usually be using qshot, as speed often trumps damage.
You will notice I did not specify blunderbuss skills.. they were a lower priority in beta as a bit of a flavor add, they are not necessarily meant to be super useful. This is not to say they do not have their uses, but flintlocks are assuredly your better option. Similarly.. belchers? don't fall in love too hard. They are likely here to stay, but a lot of their abilities are not particularly useful due to their restrictive timings and lack of in-class flood (see: Boil). Cremate costs a whopping 30s of channel time. Scorch has a similarly restrictive set of properties, but will be useful for clean up or breaking monolith in a big, big pinch outside of combat. You will find the Belcher for be more of a party gag than a class tool.
Focus
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A lot of these aren't great for the Engineer. It does not take an engineering degree (lol) to see that some of these shots do nothing for you alone. Here's the ones that DO help your strategies:
Livershot - worse sip. Since Engineer is a damage class, this is a no brainer.
Throatshot - worse toadstool balance. Since domecap is on toadstool balance, this is a no brainer.
Headshot - big damage. Good finisher. My calculations put it at somewhere between 30 - 49% of an average target's total health pool.
Heartshot - it is very good solo. Can as much as quadruple bleed speed. You can play Engineer as an effective bleed class.
Wounding - as above, see Heart. Cuts off clot for up to 11! seconds on HeavyShot, which is space for 3 to 6 bleed ticks with a HeartShot up.
Dualshot - can deliver 2 chemicals on one balance.. there's a log floating around where I stacked up 4 different damage chemicals and then veinshot another beta tester for a billion.
Niche ones that might help:
Hand - good in the mirror match or vs. Archer Ranger, Assassins/Renegades.
Arm - good vs. Str based DPS classes like Defiler, Druid, Knight?, Etc.
Leg - causes limping like a broken leg.. also pay close attention to HeavyShot's additional power, which is great vs. fast bal classes like Shaman.
Face - Just good vs. classes with loyals.. so really just Outriders, these days.
Engineer was intended to possess some unique tools/properties as a team support. In addition to the above, you will find the following shots fit this criteria:
Gutshot - Raises herb balance time. If you have a Bard, Assassin, Summoner, Shaman, or Mage on your team, this is your GO TO Focus Shot.
Lungshot - If you have a Summoner or Templar on your team, this is a very effective choice. Coordinate with your friends. Demonic will especially get value out of this shot due to Enlighten!
Trickshots - These are where a lot of the nuance will be in your gameplay. It is meant to be a set of skills that give you some pressure during the middle of a fight. Their power is balanced against their unique, shared cooldown. They have a roughly 5 second shared cooldown. Druid players will find them familiar as something akin to wisps. A brief synopsis:
Spleenshot hurts their next sip.
Veinshot cures all chems present by 1 level, but forces them to immediately tick. This is clearly the most complicated shot, but the class can handle not using it.
Numbshot eats their next tattoo touch. This is a deceptively powerful support tool and can lock somebody out of a crucial Shield Tattoo use later in a duel.
Snapshot delivers a chemical for 'free', no added balance for loading the chemical, no balance cost to fire (as it operates on Trickshot's 5s balance time). This is the trickshot I would emphasize learning the ins and outs of the most, as it will save you a lot of heartache as you try to keep chemicals flowing on a target.
Hotshot disrupts their rebounding aura.
Tagshot is a weird one. It's OK, though. It's like a pseudo-engage but not really.
Focus Buffs -
Shooting will be the best, tied with Zeroing. Damage is probably fine in teams. Critical is also probably fine for fishing for crits with artifacts, but nobody is 'there' yet, so who knows.
Inventing
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Bunch of crafting crap. Chemicals are fairly straight forward, but some notes:
Cryosite is useful if you team with Outriders.
Chlorite is probably the best, blow for blow, based on resistance availability. For DPS, anyways.
Ironite is a chemical you should not write off. It stacks with Zeroing, which opens up more breathing room to take advantage of your skillshots.
Incendite is the nuts vs. fast balance classes and stacks w/ Leg.
Neuroite is designed to be your leg up vs. EQ classes. Try combining Incendite with this for some true misery. Just those 2 will force a domecap that is 1.5 to 2x longer than toadstool balance.
Dystite is your best friend vs. acro boots.
With the gold I got from hunting in the newbie area alone, I will have enough to buy the mats for a bayonet and blunderbuss, no problem, provided I find someone who can make them.
You say, "My bottle is empty."
Jeremy raises an eyebrow questioningly.
Jeremy slaps you on the cheek.
A big part of the complexity is in the setup, though, the commodity gathering and crafting what you need. This is especially true of AB COMPOUNDS, which are needed for chems and some of the items. A couple of the commodity requirements for compounds are really awkward though - Quartz, even crushed to dust, is irritatingly difficult to acquire whilst LusterChip and ProsperDust are kind of expensive to make if you don't happen to have hoards of comms, primarily because of the emerald and diamond ingredients.
I'll give some examples of costs for chems based on Kins prices below. The spread of which compounds are used in which chems is reasonable - With ClearAsh being a middle-cost compound and most commonly used, and SandFlake (Which uses quartz) tied for least-used with LusterChip (Which is silver plus emerald). The cost per pinch for chems varies from 11g for Incendite to 40g per for Psiloite. Notably, Incendite is cheapest, which is handy - Since it costs 5 incendite per flareshot, so each only costs 55g. Flareshot isn't a skill to spam or use continually, so this is fine.
Chems aren't used constantly, though they're likely used in every fight for most Engineers. Only some of them stand out as awkward to make - Those that use rarer commodities, like emeralds, diamonds and quartz. It would really help if LusterChip and ProsperDust could be changed to use powdered emeralds and diamonds instead, as this would bring the cost of chems down considerably. I'd suggest maybe 5 pinches of the relevant dust for each, to make a batch.
The real cost of Engineer is the Stehl. Stehl itself costs 1250g in Kinsarmar and each bar makes 10 shots, for a per-shot cost of 125g. Smelting your own costs 1 sinn, 1 cuhpfehr and 1 isan ingot, at respective costs of 244g, 575g and 244g, for a total of 1063g per bar of stehl. This helps, but it's still going to cost me 106g for every shot I make. The smokeless powder used is negligible, as 10 blackpowder plus 1 clearash makes 50 smokeless powder, so it hardly costs at all. It's just a little awkward to gather the commodities for blackpowder, especially if you don't have general skill Engineering or happen to be a newbie, as the best places for saltpetre are filled with aggro mobs.
This means each time I fire a flintlock, it's going to cost me a minimum of 100g, up to a max of 165g if using ready-made stehl and an expensive chem. This is a little prohibitive, especially in extended fights. It makes bashing with shot absolutely out of the question, too. For comparison, a pinch of golden bonedust costs around about 15g, and that's still seen as an expensive cost just to use an attack.
Couple this with the disparity with toxins - Which require no ingredients, simply time to make them in a lab - and it feels like Engineer is way too expensive to use! I'm not including the costs of things like flintlocks, bayonets, gyrocopters etc in this because those are an upfront cost and the consumable items last a couple of hours or for much, much longer, making the cost of them negligible.
My suggestion for shots is to add something to inventing higher up to make producing shots much, much cheaper. Something like:
The skill to make a bayonet is really low down in AB INVENTING, such that you should be able to pick it up with just a few lessons. Similarly, a really awesome bashing buff, FOCUS WITH DAMAGE, is low down in Focus. Actually using the bayonet requires a skill in ballistics, though, so my advice would be for newbies to pick up AB FOCUS DAMAGE and then focus on Ballistics until bayonet, and then pick up AB INVENTING BAYONET if they want to make their own, or just buy one from another Engineer.
It is low hanging fruit though, so I expect it by Monday.
I like the aspect of crafting all my supplies, but if I had to pay 100g per warchant, I would hate playing zerker.
Thanks again.