by: Coffey

Coffey's guide to keeping your body parts all attached properly as you do your job, and what that job is.

IT IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO PLAN YOUR DEFENSE. You are NOT a spy who is essentially a Kamikazi warrior. Let THEM deal with that pain fettish and play it smart for yourself. NONE of your defensive skills are perpetual and you will be spending time without Base Wave, Shield Extender and a Shield Bot. The key is in the TIMING boys and girls!

All your defensive skills last about 30 seconds less than their recharge time (except the shielded Bots which I think the gap is a minute). Using Shield Extender + Base Wave + a Shield or Multi-Bot will make you near on invulnerable for a short period of time (90 seconds). After this you tend to be waking up in a hospital. The key is to overlap these skills and time it so you have 2 running at all times. Combined with decent use of cover you can tank an exceedingly large number of enemies for quite a while. This, however, is not without it’s dangers. To tank like this you will probably need the use of a repair tool which prevents you thining out the enemies with a weapon of your own. This means Turrets. The problem is that you have to manage 3 defensive skills and 5 turrets and balance them off against your available supply of power.

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Where are the Engineers in this Picture?

Biting off more than you can chew will still see you dead in the long run.

This means NOT rushing into combat like a maniac but fighting an advancing battle-line from cover to cover so you are never overwhelmed with enemies. You need to learn your limits and also when to just equip the repair tool and run for the hills. You need to make sure your turrets are always firing and not stuck on something they can’t kill (ie: your laser turret being the only one picking on a Lightbender) or not firing because their target is not in their LoS. You need to take the appropriate actions to get your turrets active again whether it is a retreat to draw an enemy out of cover or to kill the lightbender the laser turret is stuck on.

Hack has been mentioned as a tool to do this when your turrets are shooting a machine you don’t want them using, but it has other uses too. Wait for a Stalker to advance over the top of enemy troops and then hack it. As soon as it detects enemies at it’s feet, regardless of the target it has picked to attack, it will drop it’s bomb scattering the Bane underneath and drawing their aggro. Bane Turrets are also capable of drawing aggro for a while. Even hacking a Shield Drone can draw some agg but more importantly allow your turrets to fire through the shield without penalty and thin out your enemies faster.

It’s all just a matter of balancing off the incoming damage Vs how much you can mitigate or heal. After that it’s keeping your turrets firing for a constant stream of kills steadily reducing numbers.

One thing you will be called upon to do is to take enemy positions. Bane controlled Outposts are an impediment to the war effort strangling our mobility. Using the previously mentioned Attrition battlefield techniques you are an INSTRUMENTAL tool in getting these positions under our control and keeping them that way. ANY OF YOU WHO CANNOT FACE A SEEMINGLY OVERWHEALMING HORDE OF ALIEN MEAT LEAVE NOW!

CP’s are something that Engineers do very well solo against Orange conned enemies, even some Red ones thrown in. Using the attrition warfare described above it is possible to both take and hold CP’s solo under heavy enemy presence. In fact, Engineers are good at anything that takes a sustained presence.

Soldier classes just cannot fight a protracted battle alone. Attrition will slowly wear down their armour, power reserves, health and ammunition. Long journies through heavily patrolled areas are often fatal for them. Specialists are better at this, usually preferring to just get out the repair tool and high-tailing it through enemy lines. They are unable to sustain burst damage like a soldier can though and if they take a wrong turn their life is over.

A prepared engineer is able to cut a swathe through the enemy lines provided they take care. They can heal like any other Specialist, but are more able to deal with burst damage with the right skills running. They also make excellent escorts for the weaker classes able to both keep them alive and fight when necessary.

THIS DOES NOT MAKE YOU THE MASTER OF ALL YOU SURVEY! Cramped conditions or places with plenty of cover will see your turrets almost useless and you being kicked to the ground and GUTTED LIKE A TROUT! Without the protection your turrets you WILL be advanced upon and like any other specialist you WILL be ended. BE WARNED PEOPLE. Pride is one thing,
overconfidence is a death sentence. Seek or be support when the situation requires.

Engineers CAN be good at cramped quarters fighting but it takes a different skillset. You would be relying on skills such as Trap and Spider Mines as well as a Polarity gun. This is effective, but it is also prohibitively expensive. It also leaves you very open to being kicked and stunned which is NOT a good thing. You can tank in the right circumstances and if you prepare, but you are still a specialist in specialist armour and while stunned your healing tools won’t do you a lot of good.

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Engineers Shields are a Necessity

In these circumstances it is much better to seek out a team where you can enter a support role by healing, rezzing and covering retreats, using your protective skills on the tougher classes and sending in the Spider Mines or picking out key targets like healers. When teaming in Open areas however, your role can be quite different. Because you can draw a LARGE amount of aggro and survive, it is perfectly possible for you to act as the “Tank”. Softer classes like Spies may then dart around backstabbing, Snipers can snipe, and because you are fairly self sufficient in this role the Healers may make stronger use of Debuffs and Injector Guns without fear of being mobbed to death.

The Polarity Gun can also become an absolutely lethal weapon when boosted by Rage or Shredder Ammo. The polarity gun is one of the best single-target damage dealing weapons in the game if used properly. I have seen my level 38 Fire Polarity gun do 1500 damage a hit and crit on the inversion for over 20k. While this does not keep up with the Torqueshell weapons, they fire very slowly. Polarity Guns are capable of rapidly moving from target to target killing far more enemies far more quickly than these weapons are capable of. It can be put up in the leagues of a chaingun in the hands of a Grenadier using Sacrifice and and Rage. It will do less damage per hit but the inversion damage makes up for this. It is ideal for eliminating targets like bosses, but DON'T try this on a Linker as by the time the linker starts charging and you notice, the inversion damage can kill you outright when you stop firing.