11 réponses à ce sujet

[Naschrakh1983]

First off, all hail to Strive for the original build

I felt I flooded Strive's topic with my personal opinion on his build, so I made a new one

Where he focussed on a mix of Cryo Blast + AI Hacking, I prefer to max Cryo and leave AI Hacking where it is, giving this at lvl 30:

Overload 4: Area Overload
Combat Drone 4: Attack Drone
Cryo Blast 4: Full Cryo Blast
AI Hacking 1
Tech Mastery 4: Mechanic
Reave 4: Area Reave/Area (Energy) Drain

I think I prefer to replace Reave with Energy Drain (instead of putting  points in AI Hacking) for Synthetic Missions, since you'll have to kill the controlled-by-hack synthetics (who also have very low health, especially Geth, rendering hack useless imho) anyway once the hack wears off, and you want to be fast!

Taking into account that synthetics have to be stripped from their shields before you can hack them anyway I see it as a useless skill, even for those parts where you meet alot of unprotected Loki Mechs, where you'll blast them away with Overloads, so still a big "meh" on AI Hack

I believe this build is very viable for an agressive shotgun Engineer, and also allows you to be more of a support character for those real "oh ****!" moments where you and your party are swarmed by enemies. Ok, not much difference in Cryo Blast 2/AI Hack 3 vs Cryo Blast 4/AI Hack 1 except I can freeze multiple targets at once.

It's quite funny, but last night I actually dreamt about this build (yeah, I play way too much ME2), a horde of Krogan came charging towards me and my party (Mordin and Grunt) and this is what I did:

Put the Attack Drone in the midst of the group, waited 3 sec, Full Cryo Blast, had Mordin throw Incinerate on them, followed by my Area Reave. As icing on the cake I heard the familiar "I AM KROGAAAAN!" and saw Grunt storming into the frozen/burned/life-leeched enemies, shattering them apart in an orgy of ice and blood!

I actually woke up laughing in the middle of the night, lol

I tested the Area Drain strategy on Haestrom last night, combined with Miranda and Garrus' Area Overloads and it was total utter annihilation, I didn't even fire a single shot!

Modifié par Naschrakh1983, 20 juillet 2012 - 01:09 .

[Drayce333]

Eww shotgun engi and points in cryo. Energy Drain sucks on engi since he already has overload.

This build is better on Infiltrator since he has cloak for weapon damage boost and doesn't have overload. Engi is power based and already has everything he needs.

[RedCaesar97]

Drayce333 wrote...

Eww shotgun engi and points in cryo. Energy Drain sucks on engi since he already has overload.

This build is better on Infiltrator since he has cloak for weapon damage boost and doesn't have overload. Engi is power based and already has everything he needs.

I sincerely hope you are joking.

In case you are not joking, here is a quick comparison of Energy Drain and Overload:
1) Damage is the same. Cooldown is the same. Both are tech powers.
2) Energy Drain will refill your shields; Overload does not.
3) When you hit synthetic health, Energy Drain will drain energy for your shields. Overload will stun synthetics,but only starting at rank 2.
4) Overload starts with a radius of 1.5m, which can hit more than one target if they are close enough. You can increase this to 3m with Area Overload. Energy Drain is single target until rank 4 with Area Energy Drain.
5) Overload can overheat enemy weapons starting at rank 3. Energy Drain cannot.
6) Overload can detonate Pyros, Energy Drain cannot.

In case you are not joking, shotguns are awesome. Shotguns = close quarters = aggressive play = fun. 

In case you are not joking, Cryo Blast is a good (but definitely not great) power.
The good:
1) it works on all unprotected synthetics and organics
2) it provides a +100% weapon damage boost to frozen targets
3) Concussive Shot and Throw do more force and damage
4) it has a default 1.5m radius (3m with Full Cryo Blast)
5) you can cast it around cover
6) It has a cool shatter animation when frozen enemies die.
The bad:
1) enemies take time to freeze (so they can kill you before they are frozen)
2) duration is lackluster; Along with (1) this makes Cryo Blast a poor man's Pull
3) it can bug out occasionally
4) it interferes with biotics.

Modifié par RedCaesar97, 20 juillet 2012 - 11:41 .

[RedCaesar97]

Naschrakh1983, your build looks good. 
Personally, I like AI Hacking, but like you I would not want to give up Full Cryo Blast for it. 

AI Hacking is probably the most powerful skill in the whole game, balanced only by too few missions with synthetics to be of any use, and most of those missions are post-Horizon. AI Hacking is also terrible at rank 1: It has a shorter duration than its base cooldown, and hacked enemies only have health. AI Hacking starts getting better at rank 2 when the hacked enemy gains a temporary shield while hacked and the duration gets longer. Hack a Geth Destroyer and watch as he takes out all his Geth buddies for you. See AI Hacking Hilarity thread for more some great stuff about AI Hacking.

As for this statement: 

I think I prefer to replace Reave with Energy Drain (instead of putting  points in AI Hacking) for Synthetic Missions, since you'll have to kill the controlled-by-hack synthetics (who also have very low health, especially Geth, rendering hack useless imho) anyway once the hack wears off, and you want to be fast! 

Taking into account that synthetics have to be stripped from their shields before you can hack them anyway I see it as a useless skill, even for those parts where you meet alot of unprotected Loki Mechs, where you'll blast them away with Overloads, so still a big "meh" on AI Hack

Do not forget that weapons gain a damage bonus to various defenses (shotguns and SMGs deal extra damage to shields) and all weapons except sniper rifles deal more damage the closer you are to the enemy. Hacked synthetics will also draw aggro from all enemies around it so you can take out everything around it.

Again, if you prefer Overload then that is fine too. I have long since stopped using my own Engineer's Overload in this game, so it is a personal preference and not a hard-and-fast rule.

Have fun!

[Naschrakh1983]

I had fun, just completed ME2 for the 10th time

Great fun with the build, yet I had troubles with figuring out which squadmates assist me the best way. I ended up cruisin' with Mordin and Grunt most of the time, and took Garrus and Tali when synthetics were in the game

Let's see if I can find another funny build for an other class, but I expect I'll use reave/drain the most.

[Drayce333]

RedCaesar97 wrote...

Drayce333 wrote...

Eww shotgun engi and points in cryo. Energy Drain sucks on engi since he already has overload.

This build is better on Infiltrator since he has cloak for weapon damage boost and doesn't have overload. Engi is power based and already has everything he needs.

I sincerely hope you are joking.

In case you are not joking, here is a quick comparison of Energy Drain and Overload:
1) Damage is the same. Cooldown is the same. Both are tech powers.
2) Energy Drain will refill your shields; Overload does not.
3) When you hit synthetic health, Energy Drain will drain energy for your shields. Overload will stun synthetics,but only starting at rank 2.
4) Overload starts with a radius of 1.5m, which can hit more than one target if they are close enough. You can increase this to 3m with Area Overload. Energy Drain is single target until rank 4 with Area Energy Drain.
5) Overload can overheat enemy weapons starting at rank 3. Energy Drain cannot.
6) Overload can detonate Pyros, Energy Drain cannot.

In case you are not joking, shotguns are awesome. Shotguns = close quarters = aggressive play = fun. 

In case you are not joking, Cryo Blast is a good (but definitely not great) power.
The good:
1) it works on all unprotected synthetics and organics
2) it provides a +100% weapon damage boost to frozen targets
3) Concussive Shot and Throw do more force and damage
4) it has a default 1.5m radius (3m with Full Cryo Blast)
5) you can cast it around cover
6) It has a cool shatter animation when frozen enemies die.
The bad:
1) enemies take time to freeze (so they can kill you before they are frozen)
2) duration is lackluster; Along with (1) this makes Cryo Blast a poor man's Pull
3) it can bug out occasionally
4) it interferes with biotics.

Ultimately though you are going to use Energy Drain or Overload for sapping shields which they both do, they are nearly the same, you are better off with a different bonus power on engi for diversity. As for cryo

It ONLY works on unprotected synthetics and organics.

[RedCaesar97]

Drayce333 wrote...

Ultimately though you are going to use Energy Drain or Overload for sapping shields which they both do, they are nearly the same, you are better off with a different bonus power on engi for diversity.

Not really. I would go with:
1 - Overload (for detonating Pyros)
0 - Incinerate
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full Cryo Blast
4 - Improved AI Hacking
4 - Mechanic (or Demolisher if you want the extra damage instead)
4 - Area Energy Drain

As for cryo 

RedCasar97 wrote...
It ONLY works on unprotected synthetics and organics. 

How is that a bad thing? About half the powers in the game only work on unprotected enemies. Cryo Blast is no different. 

[Drayce333]

Not really. I would go with:
1 - Overload (for detonating Pyros)
0 - Incinerate
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full Cryo Blast
4 - Improved AI Hacking
4 - Mechanic (or Demolisher if you want the extra damage instead)
4 - Area Energy Drain

So ignore both Overload and Incinerate but full spec in AI hacking and Cryo.

I'm not even going to bother anymore.

How is that a bad thing? About half the powers in the game only work on unprotected enemies. Cryo Blast is no different. 

Red enemies die so fast there is no need for any sort of crowd control but with that spec I guess you're not going to kill anything fast at all.

[RedCaesar97]

Drayce333 wrote...

So ignore both Overload and Incinerate but full spec in AI hacking and Cryo.

I'm not even going to bother anymore.

Keep in mind that is build you can use for just Geth Missions, where you see armor only on Primes (5 total in game?) and Geth Colossus (1 total). Keep in mind that the OP was using a Reave-centric build but was using Energy Drain for Geth/synthetic missions. Reave = leach organic health, Energy Drain = leech enemy shields and synthetic health. 

Red enemies die so fast there is no need for any sort of crowd control but with that spec I guess you are not going to kill anything fast at all.

I have ever noticed a difference in killing speed between speccing for defense stripping (Overload, Incinerate and/or possibly Reave) or crowd-control abilities. Guns and powers gain damage bonuses to defenses, not to health. So as an Engineer you can strip defenses quickly but are left shooting at health, or you can use guns/squadmates to strip defenses and use crowd-control abilities.

My personal favorite Engineer setup is now:
1 - Overload (for detonating Pyros)
0 - Incinerate
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full/Deep Cryo Blast
4 - Improved AI Hacking
4 - Mechanic
4 - Bonus Power (Slam, Stasis, and Dominate are all fun).
 This is the most fun setup I like to use. Lots of crowd control options.

My very first Engineer used this setup:
4 - Area Overload
4 - Incinerate
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full Cryo Blast (rarely used)
0 - AI Hacking
4 - Demolisher
1 - Neural Shock (rarely used)
 Very powerful build, straight-forward playstyle: Cast Overload/Incinerate > use Mordin's Cryo Blast > Shoot frozen enemies > repeat.

[Naschrakh1983]

Just decided to make a new engineer, using my first build, but might tweak it to:

Overload 4: Area Overload
Incinerate 4: Incineration Blast
Combat Drone 4: Attack Drone
Cryo Blast 1
AI Hacking 0
Tech Mastery 4: Mechanic
Geth Shield Boost 4: Improved Geth Shield Boost

Doing that around the time I could max Reave AND put a point in Incinerate, retraining all my stats so I have max Incinerate and 1 point in GSB, then improve that one to max so I might have this for a while (think that would be either just before or right after the Horizon level, right?):

Overload 2
Incinerate 4
Combat Drone - unkown
Cro Blast 0
AI Hacking 0
Tech Mastery - unknown
GSB 4

I will then max TM to Mechanic, followed by 1 point in Cryo, then max Overload. The whole idea is simple: stronger shields (+75%) and +10% weapon damage for my shotgun (or go AR, no idea yet) so I have even more survivability when standing toe-to-toe with my enemies

Opinion?

Modifié par Naschrakh1983, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:24 .

[Naschrakh1983]

Aw nuts, I will not have Area Drain if I do the above, nevermind!

[capn233]

I'm sort of lost. This is a brand new engineer right (starting from level 1-5 depending on if imported)?

Personally I do not care for the defensive powers at all in ME2 (GSB, Fortification, Barrier). The Reave Engineer is an excellent character and I think you will find one wit GSB does not stack up to that standard. However, an Engineer has some good powers in ME2 w/o bonus, so it would still be workable, but whenever you turn it on you will be on a long cooldown.

I admit that I don't recall how many points you usually have by Horizon, but I suppose I can throw out some general things.

I like Incinerate a whole lot, so I like to get that leveled up. At the least you should try to get 1 pt in it relatively quickly. That means getting Overload to Rank 2. Drone actually works fairly decently in ME2, and on Engineer the CD is fast, so perhaps get to Rank 2 early if you want to get Cryo.

Cryo is a power that I didn't utilize all that often on Shepard, but it was a good power to spec on Mordin, and is good on Shepard as well. Technically it only works on unprotected enemies, but it does do damage in ME2 and it cools down so fast you can use it against Barriers or Shields if need be (4.5s CD, Mordin's is 9 until Rank 4, then it is also 4.5).

I have a hard time choosing bonus powers for the Engineer in ME2 since you really don't need... and I like to have pure classes anyway. So Neural Shock is in the mix since it is good at Rank 1 and is also a tech power. Flashbangs are technically Combat, but they sort of feel like something an Engineer might deploy, and they are sort of fun to mess with.