test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
I was wrong about Engineering.
jaymadiv
Member Posts: 55 Arc User
I said in a different thread that Engineering didn't look interesting to me.
in the interest of being thorough, I made one character of each Career, and I'm having a ball with my Engineer so far. I havent gotten very far with it, and still wrapping my head around how they work in Space, but overall I really like it.
I really though I would like Science better, but I gotta say I am not as much of fan of space magic on the ground as I thought i would be. really liking the Engineer Fabrications so far.
still looking for "modified weapons" as it says in the Engineer description though.
in the interest of being thorough, I made one character of each Career, and I'm having a ball with my Engineer so far. I havent gotten very far with it, and still wrapping my head around how they work in Space, but overall I really like it.
I really though I would like Science better, but I gotta say I am not as much of fan of space magic on the ground as I thought i would be. really liking the Engineer Fabrications so far.
still looking for "modified weapons" as it says in the Engineer description though.
0
Comments
And a well set up Bunker Engie can hold down any point on the ground. Strategic placement of Mortars is also key.
For example if you were running Kitomer In Stasis ground, Mortars actually can hit things on lower levels. Not only that, sticking a mortar somewhere where it can fire without being shot at can be quite useful. Again using Kitomer ground as an example, the big room with the six generators can be a good or bad place for mortars. Good because a mortar can pretty much cover the entire room, bad because it could aggro a group your group is not fighting.
IMO on the ground a fabricator Engie is more strategic minded than a buff/debuff Engie. While some might look down on a fabricator, the fact remains that if you want to lock an area down... fabricators are very good at it.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I never worry about power in space and I love the ground fabrications.
how is a Engineer in a science vessel?
beam/drain style?
My main character on PC was an engineer in a vesta class. Between running the aux dual heavy phaser cannons up front, full power to aux, gravity wells for my heavy kinetic damage, and being able to boost power with nadion inversion and EPS power transfer, it could put out a pretty significant amount of damage. Also very survivable and tanky with all the engineer/science boff abilities added onto miracle worker and rotate shield frequency.
I definitely feel like Engineering is fine on the ground these days, although a while back when psionic attacks were more prominent (initial introduction of Undine and Reman ground forces in particular) made Engineers feel a bit weak due to a lack of health restoration and psionic attacks ignoring an Engineer's primary shield defenses and restoration abilities. New powers and defenses have mostly mitigated that problem, and several more recent missions and queued runs seemed like they were particularly well designed to let an Engineer use all of its potential (old Mine Trap, Bug Hunt, and anything else involving holding a position in particular) without making the other careers superfluous. Older missions like the Borg STFs didn't generally favor Engineers because you were expected to remain highly mobile to beat bonus timers, something Engineers couldn't really do well at the time with their fixed kit layouts and most of their abilities being stationary in nature.
In space, most of your power is going to come from your bridge officers and ship choice, which is independent of your career choice. The only difference is the captain abilities, and in this respect Engineers do seem to be lowest on the totem pole in end-game. Years ago Nadion Inversion and EPS Power Transfer were great at maintaining weapon power when such a thing was difficult and indeed are still useful while you're still gearing up. Miracle Worker's initial implementation was near worthless because its heal strength was proportional to remaining crew, and if you needed a massive emergency heal chances were you had a very low crew count. These days there's so many sources of additional power, cost reduction, and healing that all of these have become semi-redundant while Tactical and to a lesser extent Science abilities continue to scale with everything else that's been added. This doesn't mean that Engineers can't fight in space, it just means Tactical will almost always be viewed as a bit better in space. Depending on what kind of missions you run and who you run them with, the extra defenses afforded an Engineer in space might mean nothing if enemies are dead within seconds, but if you play with a more casual team those defenses could make all the difference in keeping you alive.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Oversimplifying things, I feel like the engineering skill tree has been dismissed too quickly after the revamp because it doesn't directly impact DPS in the same way the Tac and Sci ultimates do.
And really oversimplifying things, I think Attack Pattern Alpha is what it is so Engineering gets overlooked quite a bit.
But I'm tired, overworked and inherently lazy so this is a task that I may not be fully equipped to handle. My overall premise is that Engineering is performing well at what it was designed by the team to do in space, and that's manage power better than anything else, and take damage really well.
I feel like the variables of the in-game reality tend to distort that perception because on the one hand, people rely a lot on consoles and other non-engineering sources to better manage their power, so the value of even BETTER power usage gets downplayed when that can be replaced by an intense focus on DPS. And I also think the bar on damage absorption is low enough that the edge Engineering has, ends up having little substantive value in practice.
Anyways, I base all of this off of my main character's build that is a low to below average DPS main tank, but can get, hold and absorb aggro very well. And I'm 24 points deep in the ENG skill tree.
I truly think Borticus and Spartan feel that Engineering in space performs the way they want it to. I just don't think a lot of players are bothering with it right now because it's not needed. And that's a somewhat separate issue. But eh, if I ever get some motivation maybe I'll put my ideas/theories to some actual testing.
My character Tsin'xing
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013