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[seacrest3000]

I just finished insanity with this build. Anyone tried it before?

Build (lvl30):
Area overload
Incineration blast
Attack drone
Cryo 3
AI hacking 1
Passive specced for power duration
Dominate 1

I tried the classic puppet master with maxed AI hacking and dominate, but I ran into problems. If I shot off the protection off a weak enemy and hacked it, it can't do much damage to its former allies, and it won't die because it gained extra protection. Also, if it took cover next to or behind me, I will be a sitting duck when the hack wears off, and I can't kill it fast enough because of the extra protection again. If I try to target a strong enemy to hack instead, I need to spend time out cover shooting its protection off first, and be shredded by enemy fire because the engineer is so squishy.

So I decided to try it wth rank 1 hacking and dominate instead. This gives several advantages. First, rank 1 hack gives no extra protection to the target, so it will continue to take damage from its former allies. Second, since it has no extra protection it can be rehacked before the hack duration is over, or cc'd with cryo blast or other squad powers. This will stop the target from flanking you when the hack runs out. Also, dominate becomes an instant cc ability on organics, something that the engineer lacks in general. Third, the extra squad points can be used to max overload and incinerate, which helps take down boss enemies faster, saves ammo when thermal clips become scarce and allows the engineer to be more versatile overall.

Of course the main disadvantage of this build is the abysmally short 5 second hack duration, further reduced by the duration penalities of insanity difficulty and of large enemies. Therefore, the best target to hack are the regular small enemies. Good targets include rocket troopers, pyros, and dogs. Also, large close quarters enemies, like krogan and geth hunters should be frozen with cryo blast instead.

I took a sniper rifle but in retrospect an assault rifle would have been better for stripping defenses.

I find a good team to bring consists of one defense stripper and one squad ammo source. Miranda, Garrus, Mordin, Samara, Jack and Zaeed were my most used squad mates.

Overall, this was a pretty easy insanity run for me, although I think a reave engineer (respec to energy drain for geth) has far more survivability and versatility. Maybe I'll try a neural shock engineer next.

[cap and gown]

I like Reeve more than dominate, and the 1 point dominate is much worse than 1 point in Reeve. With 1 point in dominate they spend more time crouching than they do fighting for you. With 1 point in Reeve you still get some CC on an individual enemy. 1 point in hack will work, but the duration is still too short to be of much use.

 

For my insanity runs as an engineer (my favorite class for insanity) I would vary up the bonus power almost every mission. In fact, I would respec all my powers between missions. Overload is pointless against Collector and anything on Tuchanka. And Energy Drain is actually better than Overload for Geth.

 

I generally cycled between AP ammo, Reeve, Energy Drain and Dominate. I liked using Dominate in the Dantius Towers where you can target someone way in the back of the crowd. I just don't take Dominate all the way up to rank 4. Rank 3 seemed to work better.

[seacrest3000]

I used hack and dominate more as cc abilities because compared to drone which distracts only one enemy at a time, a hacked unit tends to draw fire from multiple targets. Ina way, dominate can cc protected targets because they are shooting at the hacked target rather than at you. This gives me and my squad more time to shoot out of cover. With all my cooldown time used for hacking, dominating and spamming drones, my squadmates rarely died, including Miranda and Jack who like to run forward guns ablazing.

I agree that respeccing for every mission is the easiest way to play, I wanted to challenge myself to a single build for a whole playthrough.

May I ask though why you would level dominate to rank 3 only? I thought dominate was a rank 1 or rank max power.

[cap and gown]

Because I don't want them to have too much protection. I would prefer that they die by the time the power wears off. In ME3 I take the vulnerability option for Dominate but you don't have that option in ME2.

[a_mouse]

I'm pretty sure the extra protections afforded by AI Hacking and Dominate disappear when the spell wears off, no?  

 

As to your question, though, I think the duration of level one AI Hacking and Dominate are really too short to be of much use offensively.  Dominate is especially bad because the pain animation that the enemy does following first being struck by the spell counts against the duration period.  So at level one, the enemy returns to normal before it has a chance to run off and attack it's mates.  

 

Guns in ME2 are so good at stripping defenses that I find it is better (with a puppet build) to focus on immobilization/distraction.  This also means your defense stripping will not be competing for cool downs, which you want to keep charged for the next hack, dominate, or cryo blast.  One option is to take squad mates with stripping powers.  Another is just to focus on stripping with SMG, and pile on even more distraction!  Take Tali and Grunt along, and can get absolutely ridiculous. With 2 drones, Grunt, and multiple hacked or dominated enemies all active at once, nobody will be shooting at you, so you can run around shooting all the protection off, and freezing or controlling anything with a red health bar.  

 

Perhaps RedCaeser97 can chime in here with some advice?  He seems to be our resident expert on this.

[seacrest3000]

I'm pretty sure the extra protections afforded by AI Hacking and Dominate disappear when the spell wears off, no?  

 

As to your question, though, I think the duration of level one AI Hacking and Dominate are really too short to be of much use offensively.  Dominate is especially bad because the pain animation that the enemy does following first being struck by the spell counts against the duration period.  So at level one, the enemy returns to normal before it has a chance to run off and attack it's mates.  

 

Guns in ME2 are so good at stripping defenses that I find it is better (with a puppet build) to focus on immobilization/distraction.  This also means your defense stripping will not be competing for cool downs, which you want to keep charged for the next hack, dominate, or cryo blast.  One option is to take squad mates with stripping powers.  Another is just to focus on stripping with SMG, and pile on even more distraction!  Take Tali and Grunt along, and can get absolutely ridiculous. With 2 drones, Grunt, and multiple hacked or dominated enemies all active at once, nobody will be shooting at you, so you can run around shooting all the protection off, and freezing or controlling anything with a red health bar.  

 

Perhaps RedCaeser97 can chime in here with some advice?  He seems to be our resident expert on this.

 

I used the hacked target more as a distraction rather than an offensive tool. I tried using maxed hacking and dominate before, but the hacked units like to take cover with me, and I can't kill them fast enough when they revert back to normal. I got tired of the headaches and reloads and just left them at level 1.

 

RedCaesar's videos were my inspiration to try this build, but when it didn't work out for me I came up with a modified one. I think his way of playing requires more careful planning on who and when to hack, and overall is more effective at offense because enemies stay hacked longer. My style involves just hacking or dominating anything with a red bar in the middle of a crowd, and letting them kill each other.

 

I prefer Legion to Tali though. Faster cooldowns, better weapons (widow ftw) and geth shield boost. If I really need a second drone user I just let my whole crew die and get Legion early.

[Fortack]

AI Hacking is the best and most powerful ability in ME2 if you know how to make the most of it (and play missions with potential targets obviously Max it and never take the area version (you need the duration and the target needs massive shields to absorb all the damage).

 

The thing you need to understand is that the AI will ALWAYS attack the nearest enemy within sight, so what you want to do is hacking enemies that are closer to the other enemies than you are. For example, you spot a group of enemies who have a LOKI mech in their midst. Strip its armor and hack it. Congrats, you just won the day cuz all enemies will instantly turn around and attack the hacked LOKI so you can kill everything unopposed for as long as you don't move closer to the enemies than the LOKI.

 

Dominate works alike but it takes time for it to take effect, making it a lot less useful (AI Hacking works instantly). Furthermore, most organic enemies understand the concept of using cover. Dominated / Hacked enemies that run away and hide behind cover are poor distractions at best. You want to control enemies who do not use cover because they will stay close to the other enemies and force them to attack em instead of Shepard: Geth Primes, Hunters and Destroyers are awesome targets. So are all 3 mech types. Krogan, Varren and Pyros are the designated organic targets.

 

Here is a link to a topic about how fun and effective AI Hacking really is, maybe it might give you some inspiration  

[RedCaesar97]

Perhaps RedCaeser97 can chime in here with some advice?  He seems to be our resident expert on this.

Actually, I think you nailed the basics with your post:

I'm pretty sure the extra protections afforded by AI Hacking and Dominate disappear when the spell wears off, no?  
 
As to your question, though, I think the duration of level one AI Hacking and Dominate are really too short to be of much use offensively.  Dominate is especially bad because the pain animation that the enemy does following first being struck by the spell counts against the duration period.  So at level one, the enemy returns to normal before it has a chance to run off and attack it's mates.  
 
Guns in ME2 are so good at stripping defenses that I find it is better (with a puppet build) to focus on immobilization/distraction.  This also means your defense stripping will not be competing for cool downs, which you want to keep charged for the next hack, dominate, or cryo blast.  One option is to take squad mates with stripping powers.  Another is just to focus on stripping with SMG, and pile on even more distraction!  Take Tali and Grunt along, and can get absolutely ridiculous. With 2 drones, Grunt, and multiple hacked or dominated enemies all active at once, nobody will be shooting at you, so you can run around shooting all the protection off, and freezing or controlling anything with a red health bar.

That is pretty much it. There really is not much more I can add.

Rank 1 AI Hacking and Dominate duration are much too short and the hacked/dominated enemy has no protection to survive an assault.

As Fortack explained earlier, enemies in ME2 focus on the nearest threat, either a Drone, a squadmate, or Shepard. A hacked enemy will draw fire from all other enemies if he/she/it is the nearest threat. So ideally you want to hack an enemy that is in the middle of a group or an enemy that will ignore cover. As Fortack explained, all mechs ignore cover, and about half the Geth will ignore cover as well. For organics, Krogan, Varren, Pyros, and shotgun-wielding enemies will ignore cover as well and will constantly advance on their targets.

A few other pieces of advice:
1) If you want to hack an enemy and then stay out of cover, try to get a feel for the hack's duration. You want to know roughly when the duration ends so you can re-apply it. Also get a feel for how much damage you can take if some enemies still fire at you. You do not want to be too far away from cover if the hack wears off and you are on cooldown.

2) Hack a new enemy if or when you need to. For example, you can hack a Geth Trooper as your first target, then focus on stripping defenses of the Shock Trooper (a shotgun enemy), then hack the Shock Trooper when it is down to health.

For another example, hack an enemy with higher health. That Blue Suns Shock Trooper may by down to 25% health so he is much quicker to kill, so Dominate an enemy with near-full health.

3) When an enemy is hacked, focus on stripping defenses of the other enemies with guns and squadmate powers. Use crowd-control powes on the non-hacked enemy. Shepard's or Mordin's Full Cryo Blast is good, as is Jack's/Samara's/Morinth's Pull or Throw.

Tali and Shepard with two AI Hacking abilities is great. Morinth and Shepard with Dominate could work too (I have not tried it). Legion + Tali + Shepard with three AI Hacking abilities is a lot of fun to watch.