62 Antworten in diesem Thema

[TheGiantBreast]

Ok let me preface my topic by saying that I am sure this is an old and stale opinion, such that the few stragglers lingering on these old mass effect forums are probably the only organisms on the planet I can vent to with any satisfaction. I only played through on Insanity (used the console to unlock it), and frankly I sort of spoiled most of the series by trawling through forums thinking up builds. WAY too much time sunk into ME1, could never get a character I wanted to take past the first couple hours of ME2, so I have played through ME1 probably 6 times now, the first 3 hours maybe 20 times.

 

My first attempt through the game was a sentinel with singularity bonus power, got to luna and quit. My next 2 playthroughs were engineers. Great fun. Then I started trying out other classes through the most challenging parts of the game (beginning and assorted krogan/rachni fights). Burnt out on ME1, decided to say goodbye with one last playthrough once as a femshep. Chose engineer. Got to level 14 or so.

 

My conclusions: A) Femshep is like breath of fresh air after listening to alll the mark meer one would want in a lifetime.

Femshep's renegade dialogue options are sometimes laugh out loud funny (quite unexpected)

C) Engineer is a garbage kit for the games challenging encounters compared to the other classes. (except for the therum battle, which I think is super easy with neural shock engineer)

D) Engineer makes normal encounters lethal if sloppy. Snipers are often enraging. Shotgunners+sabotage? Be ready to be judo stomped or pulverized point blank. This is the point that makes the class junk. Squishiness is fine in ME2, because the cover mechanics are smooth to execute. Not so in ME1.

E) 1 point stasis is a great oh **** button bonus power, though it can be treacherous for regular casual use.

 

I'm not going to thoughtfully defend my point, that would be too classy. I just wanted to vent. I'll be remaking this character for sure, now I have to choose a new class. Again, for the last time. Good lord how many times have I said that. At least ME2 is simple for me: cryoblast spam is the order of the day. Any recommendations?

[capn233]

Ask Tali to give you a hug.

[TheGiantBreast]

but she's an ENGINEER! Nay. I will not accept such a hug. My lips may still be blue from drinking the "shotgun-engineer-is-da-bomb" kool aid, but the sweet tang has gone and all that remains is the bitter aftertaste of disappointment. But I've come to a decision that maybe you will approve capn, given your love of soldier (at least what I can gather from your forum posts). It is the only class I haven't played. Wish me luck.

[capn233]

but she's an ENGINEER! Nay. I will not accept such a hug. My lips may still be blue from drinking the "shotgun-engineer-is-da-bomb" kool aid, but the sweet tang has gone and all that remains is the bitter aftertaste of disappointment. But I've come to a decision that maybe you will approve capn, given your love of soldier (at least what I can gather from your forum posts). It is the only class I haven't played. Wish me luck.

 

Most people do agree that ME1 Engineer is the weakest class.  Biotics are usually better than tech and Engineer is the only character without a quality defensive power.  Might have been different if Engineer could use better armor.  I don't know who would have recommended a shotgun engineer for ME1, it really doesn't help.  Most people would recommend Barrier if you want defense, or Assault Rifle if you want more DPS.

 

I do like Soldier the best overall in the series, but I still like most of the other classes too.

[TheGiantBreast]

Shotgun is a widely recommended bonus power for those who want rp engineer as a non biotic, with hammer/explosive rounds for cc.

 

My first complete playthrough with the game was a barrier engineer, and honestly I don't think it shores up the class very well. Second time was with a shotgun engi and its hard to say whether it played better or I was just better at the game, probably the latter. I think the best bonus power overall is definitely warp. If you make sure to max it out yourself and have at least one squaddie with it maxed out ASAP, max pistol will take care of most situations promptly. The best CC is death when movement is so cumbersome.

 

I think soldier will be great, I'll load HE rounds on my other guns as quasi CC powers later on and rely on assault rifle. Took sabotage as bonus power for RP reasons, will be transitioning over to cryoblast engineer in me2. I think sentinel makes better use of cryo, but, and maybe I'm alone in this, sentinel just feels like a soulless class. I can't point to why, because the range of tools they have makes for some great gameplay moments. Their identity just feels off. The class doesn't have an offense related "edge" for me.

[Vazgen]

You can do things like this with an Engineer

[capn233]

Yeah late game engineer is pretty good.  But infiltrator with hacking is basically a better version of the same class.  Although more or less the story is the same for all the hybrids in relation to the vanilla classes.

 

As for Engineer bonus talents for a pure character build, there basically isn't much left when you subtract out the biotic talents.  So I am not surprised that shotguns may come up, but AR's probably make more sense unless you simply don't want to invest any points in the bonus at all.

[TheGiantBreast]

You can do things like this with an Engineer

 

That is a video of a fully maxed out engineer at the beginning of the game in one of the easier fights in that section... if you're gonna show the beginning at least show me that style versus the husks. Its deceptive for newbies looking for ideas. If you are playing the game normally that gear won't show up until the last hour of the game. Although I do admit I am a sucker for colorful explosion that have a bit of weight to them. Engineer would have been a totally unique class if they gave an option for scaling the tech mines. I suppose it wasn't required for easier difficulty levels where they are pretty impactful damage wise.

[Rusted Cage]

I picked shotty for my ME 1 engineer but only so that I'd get a full three-game consistency in terms of combat approach. I recall I found the engineer class very well suited to geth but really struggled with the krogan enemies on Insanity, especially at lower levels. Chora's Den, Therum and the "virtual bones, actual dust" krogan on Feros - man, he was tough because you get no space to move.

 

I think it boils down to squad selection more than any other title in the series. I found I needed a biotic brute like Wrex and Liara's cc powers to lock down the battlefield, especially against those exploding husks.

[Vazgen]

That is a video of a fully maxed out engineer at the beginning of the game in one of the easier fights in that section... if you're gonna show the beginning at least show me that style versus the husks. Its deceptive for newbies looking for ideas. If you are playing the game normally that gear won't show up until the last hour of the game. Although I do admit I am a sucker for colorful explosion that have a bit of weight to them. Engineer would have been a totally unique class if they gave an option for scaling the tech mines. I suppose it wasn't required for easier difficulty levels where they are pretty impactful damage wise.

Enemies level up with the player, so a fully maxed out Engineer will face level 60 enemies on Eden Prime. It works the same against husks. Notice that I didn't shoot a gun at all, you can add that if you're having trouble. The point of the video was to show how far you can push cooldown reduction on tech powers. You can't do this with an Infiltrator, Operative bonuses make a noticeable difference. 

As for ideas, Neural Shock will take care of charging organic enemies like krogan, Hacking makes every geth section a joke and biotic squadmates take care of husk rush missions. Snipers are not lethal if you level your Electronics and wear some decent armor. They can't even pierce your shields in one shot. 

In the end, I don't think that Engineer is intended to be a damage dealer in the squad. Your role is support, drop enemy shields, overheat their weapons, hack synthetics, heal your squadmates and back that all up with occasional gunfire. If you're looking for a damage dealer with tech powers - Infiltrator will be more suitable.

I'd say that Engineer is probably the weakest class in ME1 but like in other two games of the trilogy, even the weakest class can completely dominate enemies in the end game. 

[capn233]

You can't do this with an Infiltrator, Operative bonuses make a noticeable difference. . 

 

Difference for Infiltrator should only be a 14% bonus if you take Hacking as the bonus, and then Operative for the specialization.  It isn't a huge difference late game with high tier omni tools, and Infiltrator will do more weapon and power damage.

 

I agree with most of the rest though, basically you need a slightly different approach to the game with Engineer than the other classes.

 

Also wrt husks, basic Damping stuns them.  Overload damages their shields and gives them a debuff.  You do not have world class CC like a biotic, but it is a lot better than nothing (Soldier's CC). 

 

I agree with the idea that it is the weakest class in ME1 though, practically everyone agrees with that.  If you don't like it, then by all means play a class you like better.

[Vazgen]

Difference for Infiltrator should only be a 14% bonus if you take Hacking as the bonus, and then Operative for the specialization.  It isn't a huge difference late game with high tier omni tools, and Infiltrator will do more weapon and power damage.

 

I agree with most of the rest though, basically you need a slightly different approach to the game with Engineer than the other classes.

 

Also wrt husks, basic Damping stuns them.  Overload damages their shields and gives them a debuff.  You do not have world class CC like a biotic, but it is a lot better than nothing (Soldier's CC). 

 

I agree with the idea that it is the weakest class in ME1 though, practically everyone agrees with that.  If you don't like it, then by all means play a class you like better.

I tried it with an Infiltrator with the same gear and it was noticeable. Basically you had to wait some time before going for another cycle of casting. With Engineer, powers recharge almost as fast as you cast all three. Plus Operative gives bonuses to Sabotage damage, radius and damage vulnerability.

[capn233]

I tried it with an Infiltrator with the same gear and it was noticeable. Basically you had to wait some time before going for another cycle of casting. With Engineer, powers recharge almost as fast as you cast all three. Plus Operative gives bonuses to Sabotage damage, radius and damage vulnerability.

 

Both classes can take Operative, which is identical past the base class talent.

 

Infiltrator passive gets rifle and pistol cooldown bonus, as well as tech mine damage boost.  It is a 10 and 15% bonus respectively before you get to the specialization bonuses.

 

Engineer passive is cooldown (14% max) and tech protection (21%).

 

Maxed Hacking is a 30% cooldown bonus to tech.

 

Anyway the point wasn't that you can get the same cooldown bonus, but rather that you can approach it with more damage and good defensive powers.

[TheGiantBreast]

Enemies level up with the player, so a fully maxed out Engineer will face level 60 enemies on Eden Prime. It works the same against husks. Notice that I didn't shoot a gun at all, you can add that if you're having trouble. The point of the video was to show how far you can push cooldown reduction on tech powers. You can't do this with an Infiltrator, Operative bonuses make a noticeable difference. 

As for ideas, Neural Shock will take care of charging organic enemies like krogan, Hacking makes every geth section a joke and biotic squadmates take care of husk rush missions. Snipers are not lethal if you level your Electronics and wear some decent armor. They can't even pierce your shields in one shot. 

In the end, I don't think that Engineer is intended to be a damage dealer in the squad. Your role is support, drop enemy shields, overheat their weapons, hack synthetics, heal your squadmates and back that all up with occasional gunfire. If you're looking for a damage dealer with tech powers - Infiltrator will be more suitable.

I'd say that Engineer is probably the weakest class in ME1 but like in other two games of the trilogy, even the weakest class can completely dominate enemies in the end game. 

I'm not sure which armor you characterise as decent, but snipers were one shotting me for 70% of the game. It should be noted that I am talking a normal playthrough, where you put points into charm/intimidate, start at level 1, etc. Engineer at level 60 is a cake walk, sure, but so are every other class. I was speaking mainly to my experiences after trying all the other classes AFTER beating insanity twice with engineers from scratch. Namely that the only meaningful thing engineers excel at over other classes is dying in the majority of the game.

 

I mean the only tough geth sections I can recall were the highway back to the thorian, and the geth prime gang bang on the snow worlds, and for hacking to pay off you need to invest 12 ish points to get advanced. So points end up spread pretty thin.

 

A quick look at infiltrator shows its probably better than both soldier and engineer. Thing I like about soldier so far more than any other class: I don't feel skill point deprivation for the first time. Just awesome. Love having intimidate and charm at levels that I can choose either freely without sacrificing survivability. I understand why its the default class, its pretty hard to screw it up.

[capn233]

Pretty much any of the light armor characters are going to similarly be one-shotted by the sniper at the same level, unless they have barrier or immunity active.  Early game those have long enough cooldowns that you might not be able to sustain it on all side missions against snipers.

 

Anyway as an Engineer against snipers the safest thing to do is just go with Ash or Wrex spec'd into Immunity to tank the shots.  One of the few cases in which it is useful to micro squad positioning.  Just start behind a wall, activate Immunity on them, then send them straight out into the open.  Wait for the sniper shot, then pop out and use Marksman.  The easiest is of course just to Sabotage the sniper, if you are in range.

 

Infiltrator is sort of a better soldier and better engineer simultaneously, although it doesn't quite beat either at a couple things.  But it does both well enough that it doesn't matter that it is slightly less durable or has slightly longer cooldowns.  But again, this was a problem with all the hybrid classes in this game.

 

I am not sure, but it also almost seems like they tried to make First Aid and Medicine w/ Medic a way to counter the lack of durability since your medigel will be quite powerful, and you can revive squadmates with medigel instead of using Unity.  But of course the problem with that is you can't even get Medic spec until after Level 20, and you can easily have Unity around 8.

[spockjedi]

I agree that it is the weakest class, mostly because the greatest challenge on Insanity are the enemies that spam Shield Boost and Immunity. With biotics, you can simply lift and kill them before they get a chance to use those powers.
An Infiltrator with Hacking can do almost everything that the Engineer does, and has a much better weapon damage.

[TheGiantBreast]

Pretty much any of the light armor characters are going to similarly be one-shotted by the sniper at the same level, unless they have barrier or immunity active.  Early game those have long enough cooldowns that you might not be able to sustain it on all side missions against snipers.

 

Anyway as an Engineer against snipers the safest thing to do is just go with Ash or Wrex spec'd into Immunity to tank the shots.  One of the few cases in which it is useful to micro squad positioning.  Just start behind a wall, activate Immunity on them, then send them straight out into the open.  Wait for the sniper shot, then pop out and use Marksman.  The easiest is of course just to Sabotage the sniper, if you are in range.

 

Infiltrator is sort of a better soldier and better engineer simultaneously, although it doesn't quite beat either at a couple things.  But it does both well enough that it doesn't matter that it is slightly less durable or has slightly longer cooldowns.  But again, this was a problem with all the hybrid classes in this game.

 

I am not sure, but it also almost seems like they tried to make First Aid and Medicine w/ Medic a way to counter the lack of durability since your medigel will be quite powerful, and you can revive squadmates with medigel instead of using Unity.  But of course the problem with that is you can't even get Medic spec until after Level 20, and you can easily have Unity around 8.

Interesting strat for dealing with snipers. I always considered my teammates squishy ability turrets, consequently in general I rush useful ability over survival, and rarely micromanaged their positioning.

 

Upon reflection of your suggestion, I don't think the medic was intended to make YOU more durable, but rather to help your squad take a more active role in the front line. Maybe thats the engineer edge, it is the squadmate micromanaging zoo keeper? Interesting. Maybe it didn't quite achieve the level they wanted so they tacked on the drone in me2 to make it more obvious. Hmmm... I've played medic before... but lets see if it plays better in that framework.

[Kondorr]

I always fellt as if Engineer was waaay overpowered.
Need to fight a group... well then, go ShepEngineer, take Tali and Garrus as Engineers, and start spaming Overload and Sabotage, than some damping... this neutralizes EVERYONE... you take em like ducks...
Overload gets rid of the shields, sabotage gets rid of the weapons and damping gets rid of biotics... with three engineers you can practically render any group harmless the moment you spot them...

In my opinion that is god mode... The Seran fight on highest difficulty is a cake walk this way...

[capn233]

Interesting strat for dealing with snipers. I always considered my teammates squishy ability turrets, consequently in general I rush useful ability over survival, and rarely micromanaged their positioning.

 

Upon reflection of your suggestion, I don't think the medic was intended to make YOU more durable, but rather to help your squad take a more active role in the front line. Maybe thats the engineer edge, it is the squadmate micromanaging zoo keeper? Interesting. Maybe it didn't quite achieve the level they wanted so they tacked on the drone in me2 to make it more obvious. Hmmm... I've played medic before... but lets see if it plays better in that framework.

 

Yeah, Ash and Wrex with Immunity should easily survive a sniper shot, unless they are running really low level armor later in the game.  In my last engineer game I took them both on a couple of the sniper heavy side missions, since you can alternate between the two.

 

For one sniper, if you are fast enough you can get them with Sabotage, the only problem is that if you aren't fast enough or they are slightly out of Sabotage range you get hit (may not survive).

 

I think they did intend for some of the characters to be like "healer mages," and they even say something to that effect in the description of Sentinel IIRC.  I think mainly the problem with Engineer is that it is the odd man out without a defense power, and probably Adept should have been at least as fragile, and possibly Sentinel as well (despite what Sentinel became in ME2). 

 

My suspicion is that they thought that since Tech CC powers also did damage, unlike Biotic CC (mostly), that Biotics needed more durability, but in practice the damage from Tech powers is small compared to weapons anyway, especially against organics.

[Purple Gorilla]

The tech abilities in ME1 are (sadly) not that good. The only one that really stands out is AI Hacking, which you can give as a bonus talent to the Infiltrator or Sentinel and essentially do everything better than an Engineer can since you gain a handful of the really broken abilities from the Soldier and Adept. The medicine talent is not very useful so I never really miss it in comparison to what you get (fitness, commando, infiltrator pistol heat passive). 

 

Sadly the ME1 classes suffer from a severe case of homogenization where the Adept and Soldier/Infiltrator are clearly dominant and the remaining classes basically amount to a much weaker versions of one of them. In ME1 I prefer Infiltrator to Soldier, FWIW. 

[TheGiantBreast]

 

 

My suspicion is that they thought that since Tech CC powers also did damage, unlike Biotic CC (mostly), that Biotics needed more durability, but in practice the damage from Tech powers is small compared to weapons anyway, especially against organics.

Yeah, and this discrepency isn't as apparent in the primary difficulties (highest available being veteran for the vast majority of players), which is where they spent most of the balancing time. Maybe I'll give veteran a whirl and see if its fun.

 

Kondorr what difficulty are you playing on? how do you handle mercs with immunity?

 

Is it possible to chain damping to keep enemies in stunlock with 3 master dampings? I never use damping because it never seemed to do anything except against huks/creepers.

[RedCaesar97]

Sadly the ME1 classes suffer from a severe case of homogenization where the Adept and Soldier/Infiltrator are clearly dominant and the remaining classes basically amount to a much weaker versions of one of them. In ME1 I prefer Infiltrator to Soldier, FWIW. 

 

Uh, what? Ever stick Singularity as a bonus power on the Vanguard in ME1? That Vanguard is clearly better than the Adept. With Adrenaline Burst, you can cast two Singularities, two Lifts, two Throws, two Warps. Who needs Stasis?

[TheGiantBreast]

Uh, what? Ever stick Singularity as a bonus power on the Vanguard in ME1? That Vanguard is clearly better than the Adept. With Adrenaline Burst, you can cast two Singularities, two Lifts, two Throws, two Warps. Who needs Stasis?

Yeah it's really weird they gave vanguard adreneline boost. They seemed to recognize that it would be an OP bonus power on the ability based classes and consequently denied it. I think it's the only ability you can't get as a BP, aside from pistols and immunity.

 

Anyways soldier is just so safe to play. I can see why engineer is the "tactical" class. If you don't think things through you just straight up die. But this is my first time using assault rifles. Incredible. Soldier is pretty mindless though, don't think I'll finish. Engineer remains stimulating throughout the game, so thats a big plus.

 

How do hammerheads perform on assault rifle? HE?

[capn233]

Main thing with Soldier is that it is a one trick pony, but the nice thing is that you can actually feel like your squad contributes since you aren't really providing much of the CC.  And you do get to use any weapon.  If you want to make it harder, do a run without Immunity.

 

Anyway, Hammerhead isn't too bad on the AR's, it should be enough to give you some CC against things like Creepers.  I have done the end of Feros that way with Ash and Garrus also running AR's w/ Hammerhead.  Granted, the shotguns and snipers usually have enough base force that they could do the same thing with a damage ammo, but they may not have enough points invested in them to be worthwhile.

 

HE can be used with basically one gimmick AR setup.  Get a Spectre X rifle and put in two Frictionless Xs.  Then use it under Master Overkill.  Some people think it is great, but I would rather just put in Scrams and Inferno ammo so I can fire whenever I want.

[Excella Gionne]

My prime drone will make you think twice.