72 réponses à ce sujet

[Radahldo]

The drone does not minimize  damage taken  from mobs, atleast not with the same ease as the other class Powers.
Nor doess the drone boost any of the engineers damage or shielding; every other single class power boost either shields, power and weapon damage in varying combinations and degrees.

Why is this? 
In mass effect, the Engineer was the only class without either immunity or barrier.

I understand it's not a class exclusive power, but further bonuses could've been added to Shepards drone  along with the reduced cooldown .

Assuming it returns in ME3, does anyone have ideas on how to improve the drone?

[sinosleep]

When fighting Harbinger and he spends all his time attacking your drone is that not easy damage mitigation? When YMIRs, Scions, and practically any other enemy in the game do the same is it not easy damage mitigation? Particularly when it's on an absolutely tiny cool down? No other class has an easier time with the big guys than the engineer, precisely because of damage mitigation.

Modifié par sinosleep, 12 septembre 2010 - 11:52 .

[Radahldo]

I understand all of that.



But when there three enemies shooting at you, the soldier can adrenaline rush; the Assault Sentinels shielding will knock them down; the vanguard can charge one of them to refill shields.





When the Engineer is in red, casting the drone accomplishes little unless its apart of a practiced tactic.

And once the drone is out, I'm not necessarily gonna kill any of them faster, apart from the ease of headshots.



I just don't see why it needs to be that way.

[swk3000]

If you look at Damage Mitigation as strictly reducing the damage you take when you get hit, the Infiltrator doesn't have any either. Cloak doesn't decrease any incoming damage; it just makes it so enemies can't see you. So Engineers are not the only class that 'has no damage mitigation', as you put it.



It's like the difference between a Armor and Defense in Dragon Age. Armor decreases incoming damage by literally reducing the damage, while Defense decreases incoming damage by dodging the hit entirely. Both do the exact same thing; they just do it in different ways.

[Radahldo]

If you look at Damage Mitigation as strictly reducing the damage you take when you get hit, the Infiltrator doesn't have any either. Cloak doesn't decrease any incoming damage; it just makes it so enemies can't see you. So Engineers are not the only class that 'has no damage mitigation', as you put it.

Thats apart of my complaint: infiltrator cloaks, runs to cover; Engineer casts drone, the remaining enemies fire are uninterrupted.

You also have to pop out of cover to use the drone because it has the same animation as any other omni tool power: charge, adrenaline rush, and the sentinels shielding all have animations that do not force you out of cover (the same as the medi-gel action)
If the above is unclear, I mean to say i've died while casting the drone; it is not possible to die in the actual moment of activating charge, power armor and adrenaline rush cause because it keeps you in cover while its activating.

But I mentioned damage boosts also; the drone doesn't boost boost any gunshot or power fired while it's active, while the Cloak has a clear offensive aspect to it.

Why is that? It could easily be some sorta %increase cause the enemies back is turned or some such thing, but there isnt..

Modifié par Radahldo, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:12 .

[OniGanon]

The Infiltrator's Cloak is a double edged sword. It will stop the enemies from firing at you, but it also halts and resets health/shield regen, puts all your other powers on cooldown, puts enemies into cover and forces their attention on your squadmates (who often cannot survive their full attention for long). It also does not stop gunfire, and rockets are still quite capable of seeking you out. If you don't find very good cover very quickly, you're dead. I've often found it's much better to use squadmate abilities and my own Neural Shockwave to chain stagger enemies until I get to cover and hit medigel. Tactical Cloak is a great offensive tool, but defensively I'd rather Drone any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

IMO Engineer has some of the best survivability in the game, with only Sentinel and Soldier ahead. Engineer survivability comes from indirect means- rather than taking less damage, the Engineer distracts the enemy so less damage is thrown their way in the first place. This allows more time out of cover, so it also indirectly boosts your damage, in addition to the damage you get from drone and from enemies turned to your side (neither of which should be discounted).

3 enemies and you're in the red? Pop Medigel, cast Drone and strip one enemy, Dominate/Hack, battle won.

Modifié par OniGanon, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:19 .

[PsyrenY]

That's what bonus powers are for, just get GSB if you want protection that badly.



Honestly, if I had to choose between GSB and Drone, I would pick Drone in a heartbeat.

[lazuli]

Radahldo wrote...
Assuming it returns in ME3, does anyone have ideas on how to improve the drone?

If the recently released ME2 statistics are to be believed, Engineer was the least-played class.  I don't know if Bioware wants to do anything to remedy that, but I think changing (or removing) the drone would be a good place to start.  Adepts summon miniature black holes.  Infiltrators disappear from sight.  Vanguards charge across the battlefield at blinding speeds.  Sentinels cover themselves with glittering armor.  Soldiers slow down time to pull off awesome kills.  And what do Engineers do?  They send out a fragile, glowing orb to do their bidding.  Lame.

I'm not saying Engineers are ineffective.  They're just not as dynamic as the other classes.

If the drone appears in ME3, perhaps recasting it when it's already out should detonate it explosively or trigger other effects.  Trends in summoned minion skills in recent games lean towards recycling your pet for damage, defense, or other purposes.  Having it explode when you recast it could replicate that delightful remote mine feel from other popular video games.

[termokanden]

Radahldo wrote...

Thats apart of my complaint: infiltrator cloaks, runs to cover; Engineer casts drone, the remaining enemies fire are uninterrupted.

You underestimate Drone I think. It's a huge help on Insanity simply because of how spammable it is. It's virtually free to keep up drone at all times without interfering with other powers.

You also have to pop out of cover to use the drone because it has the same animation as any other omni tool power: charge, adrenaline rush, and the sentinels shielding all have animations that do not force you out of cover (the same as the medi-gel action)

This is true if you want to target a specific enemy. But in fact you can also use drone without leaving cover. It will pick the target then though. What you do is just point to the side or behind you and use it. Usually still works quite well.

But I mentioned damage boosts also; the drone doesn't boost boost any gunshot or power fired while it's active, while the Cloak has a clear offensive aspect to it.

You shouldn't forget about the actual damage done by the drone. It's not great damage, but you will basically have a fully upgraded drone active at all times, and that really adds up.

There is definitely an offensive aspect to the drone, although it doesn't boost your own damage as such.

Why is that? It could easily be some sorta %increase cause the enemies back is turned or some such thing, but there isnt..

I see where you are coming from - engineer is just not the most powerful class. Personally I don't think it needs a buff at all after playing it on insanity, it's just that other classes are insane.

Certainly drone doesn't need any buffs. It's an amazing ability.

What I would like to see though was the cooldown of both engineer and adept passive skills buffed to 30% rather than 20%.

I don't know if Bioware wants to do anything to remedy that, but I think changing (or removing) the drone would be a good place to start.  Adepts summon miniature black holes.  Infiltrators disappear from sight.  Vanguards charge across the battlefield at blinding speeds.  Sentinels cover themselves with glittering armor.  Soldiers slow down time to pull off awesome kills.  And what do Engineers do?  They send out a fragile, glowing orb to do their bidding.  Lame.

I disagree. Drone in itself is a very cool ability that's just highly underrated on these forums. But I do think tech powers are just not as nice as biotics other than that. There's no real synergy like the warp explosions and, well, it's just not "the force".

IMO sentinels have the most boring ability, although it's insanely good.

Modifié par termokanden, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:36 .

[Radahldo]

I understand you all are saying, and I play the class nearly exclusively

EDIT: reply typed out before reading your responses termokanden, and lazuli

I also understand how GSB would help, but i'm largely referring to how and why the devs built the Engineer the way it currently is.

Maybe this will go better if we dicuss just how an Engineer behaves when shields are down?

I understand medigel and use it frequently, but a large paart of my complain lies in the fact that the animation to cast the drone is different from the medigel: if i'm in the red, its more advisable to use medi-gel first, and while that is only a few seconds, it still has more priority than using a drone in that instance.

If i were to use the drone, I would pop-out of a cover and risk being gunned down. Assuming I survived, now that the drone is out, theres no real difference to the battle than one enemy being preoccupied. I
im not doing more damage or anything. Whats the point of activating it if its only effect on the battle is controlling an enemies position? I could just stunlock with gunfire if I wanted to do that. Thats somewhat boring and I just wanna encourage something more varied in the ME3 engineer.

It just feels silly that it grants no actual bonuses apart from variables that depend on enemy locations.
It feels more like a deficiency than an exciting thing thats conducive to greater tactics. Why not give the Engineer something more you sought to encourage tactical thinking?

Modifié par Radahldo, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:35 .

[termokanden]

Radahldo wrote...


If i were to use the drone, I would pop-out of a cover and risk being gunned down.

 
You will not die while doing this, even on Insanity. It's the same thing when casting other targeted abilities.

Assuming I survived, now that the drone is out, theres no real difference to the battle than one enemy being preoccupied.

Indeed. Basically drone takes one enemy of your choice out of every battle and deals some damage. Doesn't seem that great perhaps, but this has saved me many times. The only difficult enemies are the ones that charge and threaten your position behind cover. Drone takes care of that for you for basically no cost due to the low cooldown. 

not doing more damage or anything

You are. All variants of drones deal damage, although combat drones are the only ones that work against all defenses.

I agree with you that engineers need more toys, basically. But I can't understand what's wrong with the drone. It really is an excellent ability.

After starting an adept insanity playthrough, I'd much rather complain about Singularity. It isn't half as reliable as the drone.

Modifié par termokanden, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:48 .

[Radahldo]

I'm not saying Engineers are ineffective. They're just not as dynamic as the other classes.

If the drone appears in ME3, perhaps recasting it when it's already out should detonate it explosively or trigger other effects. Trends in summoned minion skills in recent games lean towards recycling your pet for damage, defense, or other purposes. Having it explode when you recast it could replicate that delightful remote mine feel from other popular video games.

Yes I agree.I've always the Engineer as a beastmaster or summoner class. That is why , if we are to keep to drone, propose that the number of effects the drone can induce be increased .

...
You underestimate Drone I think. It's a huge help on Insanity simply because of how spammable it is. It's virtually free to keep up drone at all times without interfering with other powers.
...
This is true if you want to target a specific enemy. But in fact you can also use drone without leaving cover. It will pick the target then though. What you do is just point to the side or behind you and use it. Usually still works quite well.
....
Certainly drone doesn't need any buffs. It's an amazing ability.

What I would like to see though was the cooldown of both engineer and adept passive skills buffed to 30% rather than 20%.
...
I disagree. Drone in itself is a very cool ability that's just highly underrated on these forums. But I do think tech powers are just not as nice as biotics other than that. There's no real synergy like the warp explosions and, well, it's just not "the force".

I don't feel i've underrated its spammability in this thread, or the use of it, as I mentioned shepards cooldown.

But if you can spam something, wouldnt it be improved by giving it varied effects? As it stands now, spamming is binary and just controls location/aggro.
I don't mean to say it "needs"; i've beaten insanity lots of times with the Engineer, and I don't struggle: but i'm a skilled player; all of us here are pretty skilled.. so why not give us more tactics to employ? It just seems logical to me to increase the drones use in ME3, and clear mistake to have such speciffic use in ME2. I've used it so many times and enjoy it, but it should be so much more.

The cover thing is a good point, but that eliminates tactical choice to a degree.
And I agree the class would benefit cooldown bonuses on par with the adepts

You will not die while doing this, even on Insanity. It's the same thing when casting other targeted abilities.

You can die while doing this; i've died in these instances.  I'm saying if its in dangerously in red,  not full health bar.

Modifié par Radahldo, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:54 .

[termokanden]

I see what you're saying. The drone could easily be more powerful without the engineers becoming the new overlords of ME2. But do we really want everything built into one powerful ability? I am hoping for more interesting tech powers in general in ME3, to the point where tech is as cool and fun as biotics.

The drone in itself does enough, I think. But engineers don't really have much else that they're actually good at. Sentinels are better at spamming other tech powers than engineers, and furthermore they have tech armor, which actually fits engineers so much more. Engineer enemies even have tech armor!

And I agree the class would benefit cooldown bonuses on par with the adepts

You probably meant to say sentinels. It's both hilarious and sad that sentinels are better at spamming both tech powers and biotic powers than adepts and engineers.

Modifié par termokanden, 13 septembre 2010 - 01:01 .

[Tony Gunslinger]

I see... you're wondering why the engineer doesn't have a "bailout"  button like soldiers, infltrators, vanguards, and sentinels. The adept, which are the biotic cousin of the engineer, don't have it either, and I think it's designed to be this way. The 3 power trees are combat, tech, and biotic, and the classes are broken up like this:

The Purists:
Soldier (combat)
Adept (biotic)
Engineer (tech)

The Hybrids:
Infiltrator (combat + tech)
Vanguard (combat + biotic)
Sentinel (biotic + tech)

So by design, the soldier certainly needs to be the most surviable, and It makes sense to me that the hybrids have advantages and disadvantages of being a jack-of-all-trades. Infiltrators can cloak but can't regen. Vanguards can restore shields but it's high-risk. Sentinels are  defense-oriented and have the lowest offensive boost. Pure techs and  biotics are casters, which in rpg games, are generally offensive-oriented. That's the premise anways, I think, to make classes distinct. But in practice, real class balance is certainly up for debate. But style-wise, I feel engineers are the most chess-like classes; so if you casted incinerate instead of overload, you should pay for it, and you should not get a bailout card.

Modifié par Tony Gunslinger, 13 septembre 2010 - 01:06 .

[OniGanon]

IMO the Engineer could use buffs to its other powers. Drone is fine, maybe could do with more health but that's it.



Like, I hate how biotics has Warp to cover both Armor and Barriers, while techs need both Overload and Incinerate, and I hate how there's no tech comboes and how secondary effects don't work on protected enemies...



Like, they could combine Incinerate and Overload into one ability (just call it Tech Mine or something), and give them a tech version of Dominate (let's say you hacked their hardsuit and are controlling it remotely or whatever). Or... they could make Incinerating a Frozen target causes them to explode (localised rapid expansion of molecules in a brittle object blah blah insert nonsense technobabble).

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

Just as a side note, am I the only person who doesn't use Dominate as my Engineer bonus power?

[PsyrenY]

Miss Yuna of Atlanta wrote...

Just as a side note, am I the only person who doesn't use Dominate as my Engineer bonus power?

*raises hand*
I just can't make myself shoehorn biotics onto my engineer, especially a biotic ability that seems so race-specific in nature. I use Flashbang Grenade or Geth Shield Boost on my engineers.

[OniGanon]

Dominate is probably the minority, actually. I imagine many instead use GSB, E-Drain, an ammo power, or Reave.

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

I personally use Geth Shield Boost, but the odds are good that I'll switch to something else(Warp Ammo comes immediately to mind) once I learn the ins and outs of the class.

[Radahldo]

The drone in itself does enough, I think. But engineers don't really have much else that they're actually good at. Sentinels are better at spamming other tech powers than engineers, and furthermore they have tech armor, which actually fits engineers so much more. Engineer enemies even have tech armor!

It wouldnt be that hard to balance, I think. It wouldnt make it the best class, not there would be anything wrong with that, just more varied and conducive to tactical thing; lots of tools.

I see... you're wondering why the engineer doesn't have a "bailout" button like soldiers, infltrators, vanguards, and sentinels.
...

Yes largely, and I see what you mean.
But i'm not sure if I agree on the "low offesnsive" thing for Sentinels.
Mages in fantasy also usually have spells that fortify their damage and etc, but I don't really feel this analogy applies completely . 

If we follow it,then  why is it that in ME1 adepts and sentinels had barrier?

Adepts also lack a very obvious bailout card, but it's been a pattern for the Engineer.

Like, they could combine Incinerate and Overload into one ability (just call it Tech Mine or something), and give them a tech version of Dominate (let's say you hacked their hardsuit and are controlling it remotely or whatever). Or... they could make Incinerating a Frozen target causes them to explode (localised rapid expansion of molecules in a brittle object blah blah insert nonsense technobabble)
.

Isnt this why a portion of Adept players hate Warp?

But I agree in that the lack of synergy should be addressed.

Just as a side note, am I the only person who doesn't use Dominate as my Engineer bonus power?

I use neural shock

Modifié par Radahldo, 13 septembre 2010 - 02:46 .

[numotsbane]

Drone would be awesome it if evolved into drone swarm. maybe too awesome. mmmm, drones.

[IMNWME]

Drone Swarm is a freaking great idea.

[Radahldo]

What do you mean by Drone swarm?

[numotsbane]

multiple drones. maybe you deploy two at once, and they split up, or maybe when you create a drone it doesn't automatically cancel the last one, but you can only have 2. increase cooldown to 5s though, I'd say.

but then, im no game designer

[baller7345]

Giving the engineer something that would increase their weapon damage or make them more survivable wouldn't fit the idea of the class in my opinion. Like the adept they can be seen as a mage class and in general those classes are always the most fragile and ME is no different. That being said when I can solo a YMIR mech without fear of death thanks to the drone I can't justify making it more powerful.

The engineer being in red and surrounded by enemies isn't something that it should be in (although it is doable) the class is meant to control the battle field through crowd control (cryo blast) and through trickery (drone and ai hacking). This doesn't lend itself to being a upfront fighter.

I honestly love the engineer for the way it plays and would be upset if bioware gave it a makeover for the second straight game. Although I was upset over the first makeover and it turned out I liked ME2 engineer even m ore.

In summary I'd say the engineer has no damage mitigation by design. Like the adept they weren't designed for up close combat and thus are fragile in comparison. Singularity doesn't mitigate damage or add shields it simply locks down enemies while stripping defenses slowly much like the drone. Giving the engineer a way to easily handle being surrounded without relying on contol and tricks would take away from what they engineer is in ME2.

EDIT:
To the multidrone idea.  That might be a bit hard to program and could possibly break the ai (which drone gets attacked).  We must remember that even though we want complex ai that adepts to us it more than likely isn't going to be done.  AI tech simply won't allow for perfectly intelligent beings so we will always have ai problems (bit off topic).  Its doable but I figure a simpler solution that gives a simlar result is to simply beef up the drone and let it attack two or more enemies.  It shouldn't be too hard to select multiple targets via the pause menu (not sure how you would select during real time though that is a problem with spawing two drones in real time too.

Modifié par baller7345, 13 septembre 2010 - 04:17 .