33 réponses à ce sujet

[Bigdawg13]

Hello ME3 Community!

 

I'm struggling with the lvl 36 ME3 insanity Engineer. I am using Red Ceasar 97's Engineer from (Ref 2).  Here are the basic issues. 

 

1. Sabotage seems like...well like crap.  Yes I have evolved it to tech vulnerability.  But it basically fills up one of my 3 hotkeys (360) just so that incinerate does more damage.  I realize it will hack turrets, etc.  But just like AI hacking in ME2, these seem far and few between.  So basically this just ends up being an ability that temporary reduces difficulty level on a given mob (by making incinerate do more damage).  Am I seeing this wrong?  It just seems...like crap.
2. Having issues surviving.  The build in (ref 2) lacks any form of control.  So I pop up and throw out sabotage.  Then an incinerate.  If anything goes wrong, I die.  I throw out my drone but it's not enough with just level 1.  It doesn't seem to appear at the target like it did in ME2 either.  Perhaps I've just played too many biotic classes whose abilities have built-in control.
3. Riot shields, and being swarmed (sort of an addition to #2).  I just don't have any area of effect outside of combos.  And even with 200% recharge speed, it takes a couple seconds to throw out sabotage and incinerate (or overload).  So when two riot shield guys appear, I am sort of screwed unless I happen to have someone in my party with pull (which I do not at this point).  Seriously though...anyone with a gun should be engineer fodder but they are eating me up. With a biotic, there is double pull, double throw, singularity (list goes on).
4. Drone Master does not appeal to me.  I bring this up before someone mentions it, but I prefer to be the one killing things.  I have also considered focusing less on overload and leveling up my drone, but if I do that I wonder if I should just go infiltrator.  I really feel like I'm missing something really important with sabotage.  And I'm this close *holds up two fingers* to gibbing my save over to infiltrator or a no-charge novaguard (thanks capn233).
5. I have 3 hot keys on a console.  Should I just give up the engineer and go with an ammo class (or one that includes control with damage)?  At least with an adept I could control and do damage (biotic attacks and combos tend to throw enemies around, controlling them in a fashion)?

 

 

A little bit of background info:

I play on a 360 and have played ME3 before.  In the past, I generally play like a soldier, but have been trying to break away from this.  Recent play through with ME2 I jumped classes a bit (with gibbed) but ended up really happy with the adept.  I liked the warp combos, but was interested in trying out the tech combos in ME3. 

 

I suspect if I were to dig long enough, and hard enough, I would find my answers on these forums, youtube, etc.  But I am really sick of digging and hoped a few of you would be happy to help contribute.

 

References:

(Ref 1)  Mass Effect 3 Single Player: A compilation of strategy guides and discussions by Abraham_uk

 

(Ref 2) LEVEL 40 BUILDS FOR ALL classES! discussion started by Abraham_uk

 

(Ref 3) I review all 6 classes. (ME3 single player) by Abraham_uk

 

Red Caesar 97's engineer build for ease of reference (see ref 2):

Spoiler

Red Ceasar 97's Engineer:


Engineer level 40 build:
1 - Combat Drone
6 - Sabotage: Backfire, Explosive Hack, Tech Vulnerability
6 - Overload: Damage, Neural Shock, Shield Damage
6 - Incinerate: Damage, Burning Damage, Armor Damage
6 - Tech Mastery: Damage, Damage and Capacity, Power Mastery
5 - Fitness, whatever you want. I prefer Health and Shields, Shield Recharge

Levelling the Engineer:
1) As soon as possible, put 1 point into Sabotage, Overload, and Incinerate. I think you start with 1 point in Combat Drone; but if not, then you already start with 1 point in Overload or Incinerate so then put that 1 point into Combat Drone. (I only use Combat Drones to get Guardians to turn around).
2) Max Sabotage. You want Tech Vulnerability as soon as possible. Sabotage should be your go-to power for starting power combos and Tech Vulnerability has the added benefit of increasing tech combo damage.
3) Max Incinerate. You could always max Overload first if you are so inclined. I just think Incinerate would be better to help with armor.
4) Max Overload (or Incinerate if you maxed Overload first).
5) Max Tech Mastery. You want maximum power damage.
6) Put remaining points into Fitness. You can live just fine without Fitness as long as you are careful and/or combo everything to death before it has a chance to kill you..

[gothpunkboy89]

What armor are you using?

 

What weapon are you use?

 

Are you trying to rely only on tech combos?

 

200% recharge speed is not worth the trade off of good weapons.

[Bigdawg13]

build is tech power ... not weapon.

Are you suggesting I focus on shooting more? I did not have this problem with adept.

How do weapons help survival while waiting for incinerate to tech combo sabotage?

[RedCaesar97]

What weapon are you use?

 

Are you trying to rely only on tech combos?

 

200% recharge speed is not worth the trade off of good weapons.

 

Considering how many good weapons there are that still give you +200%, that should not be an issue, especially with DLC.

 

 

But on to the subject at hand...

 

Using Sabotage:

Sabotage is the Engineer's best power, especially with Tech Vulnerability. Tech Vulnerability increases the damage of all tech powers for 10 seconds, including tech burst damage (it is unclear if it increases the damage of fire explosions and cryo explosions).

 

However, using Sabotage can be a bit tricky. It took me a while to get the hang of it; I had to practice using it for a few missions. 

 

First, some important information about Sabotage:

> The Backfire effect has a 1.5 second delay before applying the damage.

> Backfire only occurs on organic targets. Synthetic targets (Geth, turrets, Rampart mechs) will be hacked instead; there is no backfire on synthetic targets.

> You can see the backfire effect on organic enemies when they glow with a blue lightning effect.

> The Backfire effect primes for Tech Bursts for 2 seconds.

> The Backfire effect can damage all organic targets, not just ones with weapons despite the description.

 

 

So to use Sabotage, you Sabotage > wait until the backfire > hit the enemy with Overload/Incinerate during the Backfire priming window. So after hitting an organic enemy with Sabotage, you can hit the target with another damage power to tech burst between 1.5 to 3.5 seconds after the initial Sabotage.

 

Power combo chains:

Another thing to note is that you can chain combos of different types. To explain: if the detonating power will prime a different type of explosion than the first power, then that power will prime. For example, if you go Overload > Incinerate, Overload will prime for a tech burst, then Incinerate will detonating the tech burst while priming for a fire explosion. So the Sentinel can go Overload > Warp > Throw for a tech burst > warp combo chain.

 

So what that means is the Engineer can alternate Overload and Incinerate for tech burst and fire explosion combo chains. so against larger enemies like Brutes, Banshees, Harvesters, Atlas mechs, and so on, you can go Sabotage > Incinerate (fire explosion) > Overload > then alternate between Incinerate and Overload. You can even work squadmate powers from EDI or Garrus/Tali/Kaidan into the combo chain to benefit from the Tech Vulnerability.

 

Weapon weight:

To prime and detonate your power combos as an Engineer requires keeping your weapon weight (weight capacity) between +200% and +150%. Since most of your tech powers have a priming window around 3 seconds, you need to keep your weapon weight light. 

 

At +200% weapon weight, your big three powers -- Sabotage, Overload, and Incinerate -- will have cooldowns around 2.46 seconds. At 150%, the cooldowns will be just about 3 seconds. 

 

So keep this in mind if you take Fortification, Barrier, or Defense Matrix as bonus powers. They will increase your power damage when active, but will decrease your cooldown speed. By default, Fortication will decrease cooldowns by -50%, while Barrier and Defense Matrix will decrease cooldowns by -60% by default.

 

Like the Adept (and all classes), the Engineer can get by without shooting their weapon a lot or even at all except in specific circumstances or missions.

 

 

Helpful videos (I hope):

 

First off, here is a video of mine showing an Engineer using Sabotage, Incinerate, and Overload against Reapers. 

Spoiler

Do not let the title fool you; it is not a Drone Master Engineer build. It was my Drone Master Engineer, but I had trouble in a mission so I respecced him so I could power combo my way through the mission. I used Fortification as a bonus power.

 

Second, here is a video of mine showing power combo chains versus the three Geth Primes on Rannoch. I did not shoot my weapon.

Spoiler

 

Third, here is a helpful video about Sabotage by OniGanon:

Spoiler

It is a multiplayer video, but the same Sabotage concepts apply to single player. Watch with annotations on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxoEPbQu3JU

 

Additional resources:

• Powers and their Hidden Attributes - Updated for Reckoning by Cyonan. This has some good data on priming information. It is for multiplayer but the same stats should still apply (not sure about Overload though; it was changed in multiplayer from 3 seconds to 5 seconds but I do not know if that change made its way into single player.
• Combo explosion damage formula + Damage table (Tested in-game) by corlist.

[RedCaesar97]

As for Cerberus Guardians you have the following options:

• Cast Combat Drone. They should eventually turn around to focus on the drone, at which point you can take them out from behind.
• Take Liara (Singularity) or Javik (Pull) with you to lift them up or pull away their shields.
• Take AP Ammo as a bonus power for cover penetration.
• Take Garrus as a squadmate and use his AP Ammo (with the Squad Bonus at rank 4) for cover penetration.
• Use an Armor Piercing/Shredder mod on your weapon for cover penetration.
• Take Lash as a bonus power.

 

CAT6 Heavies have Omni Shields, but they are vulnerable to Sabotage, Overload, and Energy Drain.

[gothpunkboy89]

Personally I've found tech powers lack damage compared to biotic combos.

 

Case in point liara using warp and Javik using slam is a 100% instant death to cannibals on insanity. Even though I didn't evolve either of their powers for combo bonus.

 

I use a fully evolved incinerate then have Garrus detonate it with fully evolved overload and the cannibal will still have 2 bits of health left.

 

Which is why I suggest a good weapon. You don't need to be at 0%. But you will need something that can take on armored opponents at the very least.  Fully powered up incinerate does jack to brutes and banshees on insanity. Maybe taking away 1 maybe 2 bars of armor.

 

I'd go with at least a mattock with ultralight weight mod and maybe armor piercing mod and SMG of your choice with power boost/what ever else you want.

 

Engineer is more support role then offensive role. You have to take that into account when setting your class up.

[cap and gown]

RedCeasar has covered the basics. I differ from him some on Sabotage however. I go 5b on Sabotage. I also take 5b on Incinerate. I want to cast as often as possible for more combos overall. I also go 4b, 5a, 6a on Overload since I use Overload an awful lot on mooks, not just bosses. Drone doesn't do much to distract enemies in ME3 compared to ME2. It will get a Guardian to turn around.

 

My preferred team for an Engineer is Garrus, Ashley and EDI. Ashley and Garrus focus on Concussive shot. Garrus provides the squad with Armor Piercing ammo. I do not spec Garrus into Overload. Ashley also provides Inferno Grenades for spawn nuking (Inferno Grenade>Chain Overload) EDI is good with both Chain Overload and Incinerate. You can sabotage, wait a bit, EDI overload for multiple tech bursts. EDI's Overload is significantly faster than Garrus's which is why I stick with Concussive Shot with Garrus. (Concussive Shot has a 6.25 second cool down.)

 

My Tristan Shepard provides an Insanity Engineer example for ME3 (and ME2). This is the Atrium fight on Grissom as an example (xbox) Fortification as a bonus power with the 5a, 6a evolutions.

 

Also, I don't really use my weapons much when playing any of Adept, Engineer or Sentinel in ME3. Mostly I am interested in the Power Amplifier mod.

[capn233]

...

 
My thoughts with regard to your numbered points and my biases on Engineer:
 
Sabotage - it is good for a few things, but it really isn't particularly impressive until you get to rank 6 for Tech Vulnerability, and even then that will depend on if you have other tech powers on your character or the squad to make use of it, and also if the sabotaged target has enough HP that it will matter.  Backfire has a multiplier against shields, but of course Overload can do significantly more if the right evolutions are taken, and Backfire doesn't occur on synthetic/mech targets anyway.  You can of course also use it as a stagger power to make hitting targets with your weapon easier.  In any case, if you are going to level this up first, you are going to need to probably run EDI/Garrus early game.
 
Survivability - Sabotage isn't much of a control power.  Really Overload w/ Neural Shock is probably your most reliable CC power.  Should stun basically every unit that you could stun (organic or synthetic).  Incinerate works against some organics on health, but it is notable that it won't panic Cannibals and Husks.  Drone is fairly lackluster compared to ME2 drone as far as CC is concerned.  Of course if your character is light on CC, Liara is a good choice for the squad as Singularity is good, and she can be built with fast cooldowns.  Also it is worth noting that early in SP you are significantly less durable than characters and setups people typically take into gold+.  Just knowing maps and enemy locations is helpful in avoiding damage, as well as the decent spots to take cover.
 
Guardians - As above, if you have Liara in the squad, you can Singularity them.  Otherwise you need cover penetration on your weapons.  Of course in general I recommend cover penetration on every hitscan weapon since it is so useful and there typically are not two other weapon mods worth taking.  So run Piercing or Shredder mods, depending on the weapon, and prioritize finding/buying them.  Otherwise you have to mail-slot them, or try to get them to turn around with Drone, which isn't particularly fast or reliable.
 
Drone Master - It isn't my cup of tea either, which is why I focused more on the bread and butter tech powers (OL, Inc) for the most part on my engineer runs, and then supplemented them with Sabotage or Drone depending on the run and the goals I had.  Cryo Blast is also a good power for CC, and it is one of the strongest debuffs in the game, so it is also an alternative to drone or sabotage if you want to invest in it.
 
Hotkeys - I don't play on console, but at some point I don't enjoy too many powers either, which is a large part of why I pretty much stuck with just OL and Incinerate for my "Combat Engineer" run.  Since you are level 36 you should have enough points to max both, plus passive and fitness, with one point in bonus power.  Alternating OL and Inc will chain tech bursts and fire explosions, and makes power management a little simpler.  The next power you could focus on could be Sabotage.  And maxing Fitness helps with durability.

 

Let's see if this power calculator link works.  AP ammo because it is in that calc by default, and it is pretty good anyway.
 
Of course, if you want more points in Sabotage, Cryo or whatever you can steal some out of the passive.

 

edit:  looked up what I ran at Level 35 for Combat Engineer and it was 4 in Drone and AP like this.

[RedCaesar97]

Personally I've found tech powers lack damage compared to biotic combos.

 

Case in point liara using warp and Javik using slam is a 100% instant death to cannibals on insanity. Even though I didn't evolve either of their powers for combo bonus.

 

I use a fully evolved incinerate then have Garrus detonate it with fully evolved overload and the cannibal will still have 2 bits of health left.

 

Which is why I suggest a good weapon. You don't need to be at 0%. But you will need something that can take on armored opponents at the very least.  Fully powered up incinerate does jack to brutes and banshees on insanity. Maybe taking away 1 maybe 2 bars of armor.

 

I'd go with at least a mattock with ultralight weight mod and maybe armor piercing mod and SMG of your choice with power boost/what ever else you want.

 

Engineer is more support role then offensive role. You have to take that into account when setting your class up.

 

All of this explains why you hit everything with Sabotage first (especially with Tech Vulnerability evolution). The Engineer is quite deadly. It lacks squadmates like Liara and Javik, but then again, if there were tech equivalents to those two squadmates then biotics would be considered underpowered.

 

And since you have to carry a weapon anyway, you might as well use it. 

 

The Engineer certainly is not for everyone. I feel that it takes more work to get the most out of it compared to the other classes. 

[gothpunkboy89]

Everyone has their own styles. With engineer I'm not a power focused player. I use them to complement my weapon.

 

Incinerate to finish off weakened targets.

Overload to strip shields

Cryo blast for armored targets to weaken them

Combat Drones leveled just for explosive perk to make it glorified grenade

Turret is simply fire support.

Sabotage initial damage/finish off while reloading.

 

Just my preferred play styles. Not the best nor it is the only option. Just how I prefer to play.

[Bigdawg13]

The more I read the less inclined I am to play engineer on a console. I appreciate all the advice though.

[gothpunkboy89]

The more I read the less inclined I am to play engineer on a console. I appreciate all the advice though.

No need to be less inclined. There are multiple ways to approach the engineer.  Red's set up is a very power primary build. My set up is more weapon is primary means to kill with powers acting as support roles to speed up killing.

[spockjedi]

As for Cerberus Guardians you have the following options:

• Use an Armor Piercing/Shredder mod on your weapon for cover penetration.

That's why I NEVER go out of the Normandy in ME3 without a piercing mod or a weapon that has native penetration.

[Bigdawg13]

No need to be less inclined. There are multiple ways to approach the engineer.  Red's set up is a very power primary build. My set up is more weapon is primary means to kill with powers acting as support roles to speed up killing.

 

What I'm interpreting, is that tech combos really need sabotage to be competitive.  On a console, that means one of my 3 hot keys goes to sabotage.  Then include incinerate for the tech combos and overload.  And that is what I'm using now, but I'm getting destroyed.  Every time I pop up to cast sabotage (while in cover), I lose my shields.  Then when I pop up to cast incinerate (after 1.5 seconds or slightly more), I am nearly destroyed and left with a sliver of health. 

 

I really am only seeing a few options if I stick with engineer.  I can swap out overload for drone, so that something takes the heat off of me.  I could drop the game difficulty and then drop sabotage as a primer (and once again pick up drone).  I really feel like I absolutely need drones and/or turrets to be able to cast without dying so often.

 

I have thought about fortification, or defense matrix.  But the damage reduction is small compared to what must be given up.

 

On a PC I could hot key 4 ablities, meaning you could have drone, overload, sabotage, and incinerate.  I don't think I had this problem on adept because most of their abilities are just wrappers for the same thing.  And warp does double duty.  But with engineer, I really need a fourth hot key (or at least that's how it feels).

 

*EDIT*

 

I think I'll watch some more videos of this.  Maybe I don't need to pop out of cover to cast sabotage.  That would help.

 

*EDIT 2*

 

I know the drone master build was written for console players  I guess...I could try it.  Maybe I'll like it.  I like seeing things blow up from the combos though.

[fraggle]

On a PC I could hot key 4 ablities, meaning you could have drone, overload, sabotage, and incinerate.  I don't think I had this problem on adept because most of their abilities are just wrappers for the same thing.  And warp does double duty.  But with engineer, I really need a fourth hot key (or at least that's how it feels).

 

*EDIT*

 

I think I'll watch some more videos of this.  Maybe I don't need to pop out of cover to cast sabotage.  That would help.

 

What's the problem with using the Power Wheel from time to time?

Also how exactly do you pop out of cover? Usually if you hit someone with a power while in cover you will not receive too much damage, so it is kinda strange that happens how you describe it.

Maybe Reave would be a bonus power for you? Gives you protection while weakening the enemies.

I would not ditch Overload, it's one of the best powers for me personally, it's fast and can get rid of shields quickly (I think they can be one-shot even on Insanity if I'm not mistaken), making way for maybe also Cryo blast, then detonating that, shattering or slowing down other enemies around in the process. I used Kaidan in my Engineer playthrough, and I think EDI would work fine, too. I made it through London with Kaidan and Garrus.

 

I'm not an expert like the other guys in here (still a noob and learning ), but I got through fine with Engineer (he was my first Insanity run in ME3), and I rarely used my drones at all. If I had to choose 3 powers to have on the hot keys (I also play on console), I think it would be Overload, Incinerate and Cryo Blast. Not sure how often I used Sabotage. But I think once enemies are stripped your Cryo Blast and Incinerate would be fast enough to combo off yourself (or if you yourself cast Overload, use Incinerate afterwards). Cryo Blast could also help you keeping your enemies in check.

[Bigdawg13]

What's the problem with using the Power Wheel from time to time?

Also how exactly do you pop out of cover? Usually if you hit someone with a power while in cover you will not receive too much damage, so it is kinda strange that happens how you describe it.

Maybe Reave would be a bonus power for you? Gives you protection while weakening the enemies.

I would not ditch Overload, it's one of the best powers for me personally, it's fast and can get rid of shields quickly (I think they can be one-shot even on Insanity if I'm not mistaken), making way for maybe also Cryo blast, then detonating that, shattering or slowing down other enemies around in the process. I used Kaidan in my Engineer playthrough, and I think EDI would work fine, too. I made it through London with Kaidan and Garrus.

 

I'm not an expert like the other guys in here (still a noob and learning ), but I got through fine with Engineer (he was my first Insanity run in ME3), and I rarely used my drones at all. If I had to choose 3 powers to have on the hot keys (I also play on console), I think it would be Overload, Incinerate and Cryo Blast. Not sure how often I used Sabotage. But I think once enemies are stripped your Cryo Blast and Incinerate would be fast enough to combo off yourself (or if you yourself cast Overload, use Incinerate afterwards). Cryo Blast could also help you keeping your enemies in check.

 

Pretty sure your description supports what I'm saying.  Cryoblast provides some CC.  It's what I'm missing right now (cryoblast or drone).  But from the posts above, and my own personal experience, tech combos don't seem to do the same kind of damage as biotic combos do unless you have tech vulnerability on the target.  But then you're back to filling up one of your limited 3 slots with sabotage.

 

The power wheel is fine occasionally, but not if I have to use it constantly.  I'm finding that a balanced engineer really needs 4 powers at minimum, all the time.  It's too bad disruptor ammo isn't a bonus power because that would free up overload.

[capn233]

Tech combos don't do as much damage because single player tech powers don't have combo multipliers like biotic explosions, and they are more specialized.  BE has multiplier to armor and barriers, TB just has a bonus to shields, FE to armor, and CE doesn't get any bonus to defense layers.  The base damage for all four combos is actually the same at equal sum rank, but the combo multipliers and defense multipliers make the difference.

 

Tech combos are more spammable than BE's if you continually chain separate types together, which isn't going to happen in most situations with biotics.  But they don't really grant you damage and CC at the same time.  Mostly damage, mild CC.

 

Tech powers themselves do more damage to the defense layers they are effective against, which is probably why the combos themselves aren't quite as good as biotic explosions.  Overload isn't going to need Sabotage to be effective against shields or barriers with the right evolutions for instance.  It isn't like Warp doing pitiful damage against barriers or armor by itself.

 

You can make a fairly compelling argument that tech and the Engineer is more weapon-centric than the biotic classes and less a controller, and that his powers support weapon damage more directly.  Cryo Blast for CC and damage-taken debuff, or Overload to get around shieldgate.

 

One thing you could try before giving it up is going Energy Drain as the bonus power, then invest in Incinerate and Cryo Blast.  EDrain for shield removal/restore, Cryo for CC and Debuff, and Incinerate for combo detonation and general damage / some organic CC.  EDrain does stagger, but won't stun like Overload, but it might be a decent trade if you want more tankiness.

 

If you want to try and go all in on a controller Engineer, I suppose Cryo Blast, Explosive Drone, Sabotage and perhaps Decoy would be an option.  A controller is definitely going to need to use his weapons to deal damage.

 

Of course if you just feel like Engineer isn't a good fit, then play a different class.  I don't imagine you would actually find Infiltrator better than Engineer, since it is in some ways an even more weapon-centric engineer.

[fraggle]

I'm gonna suggest something that might be frowned upon

James and EDI. James can provide the squad with Incendiary Ammo, which means you can detonate even more with your Incinerate. EDI has both Overload and Incinerate which will create two good powers for most situations. Well, I already said it, I'm still learning as well, but it might be an idea.

I just ran a quick test with Citadel Coup and this setup (I can upload a video if you want), putting only 2 points in Drone for distracting Guardians and none into Sabotage. The rest Overload, Cryo Blast and Incinerate. It went fine though I'm a bit rusty, haven't played Engineer for some time and still confuse the hot keys sometimes. And while James's cooldown on Carnage is very long, it's great for taking down turrets for example. Hit them with Overload and Carnage and they're gone. Or well, simply hack them since you're an Engineer

 

But other than that, if you really don't have much fun maybe it's not the class for you.

The only other ideas that come to mind are take advantage of everything that makes your cooldowns faster, alternative outfits (EDI has one for recharge speed), or the collectibles you can exchange at Glyph. There's a few that fasten your cooldown.

[cap and gown]

It may just take some experimenting and experience on your part to get Engineer to where you like it. I know when I started my Tristan Shepard run I was still used to playing the Sentinel where team mates would prime (LIara-Singularity, Warp; Javik-Pull, Dark Channel; EDI-Incinerate) and Shepard would detonate (Throw/Warp). With the Engineer Shepard would mostly be doing the priming (Overload, Incinerate, Sabotage) and the team would be doing the detonating (Garrus/Ashley-Concussive Shot; EDI-Overload for sabotaged mooks). So on Menae I kept hitting husks/marauders with Garrus's Concussive Shot and then Overloading rather than the reverse. But I corrected that. By the time I got to Utukku things were much more coordinated.

 

As Capn233 points out, your tech bursts/fire explosions do as much damage to health as biotic explosions. If you are using Throw for combo's, one of the effects you may be seeing is simply the enemy being thrown off the battlefield and/or physics damage from them hitting walls/roofs/ground/etc. Certainly, I didn't see any particular problem with tech bursts one-shotting, say, a cannibal.

 

With Tech Mastery you can get +70% power damage. With Fortification 5b you can get another +30%. With the power amp mods you can buy after Menae you can get another +15%. (After doing the Citadel DLC +30%) Plus at least one power boost through intel before the Coup for another +5%.

 

Just remember the higher the ranks of the powers you are using for your combos, the more damage they do. So two rank 6 powers that combo off each other will do more damage than if one power was rank 6 and the other was rank 5.

 

As an Engineer I mostly went with just the three powers: RB-Overload; LB-Incinerate; Y-Sabotage. Drones and Turrets were mostly an afterthought: see Guardian: throw drone.

[themikefest]

I'm currently doing an insanity run as an engineer. Using the combat drone to fire rockets and the sentry turret for flamethrower. My bonus power is armor piercing ammo. I'm using the Mattock. Using overload and cyro burst. The fighting is easy.

[RedCaesar97]

What I'm interpreting, is that tech combos really need sabotage to be competitive.  On a console, that means one of my 3 hot keys goes to sabotage.  Then include incinerate for the tech combos and overload.  And that is what I'm using now, but I'm getting destroyed.  Every time I pop up to cast sabotage (while in cover), I lose my shields.  Then when I pop up to cast incinerate (after 1.5 seconds or slightly more), I am nearly destroyed and left with a sliver of health. 

 

I have thought about fortification, or defense matrix.  But the damage reduction is small compared to what must be given up.

 

Tech combos do not really need sabotage to be competitve; You can get by just fine with Overload and Incinerate and Cryo Blast.

 

The issue when comparing the Engineer's tech powers to the Adept's biotic powers is that Throw and Warp and Singularity have evolutions that increase biotic explosion damage, and Pull has an evolution that increases all damage dealt to the target (which I think includes biotic explosion damage). Sabotate with Tech Vulnerability just tips the scales to something a little closer to even when it comes to explosion damage.

 

The Adept also benefits from Liara and Javik as squadmates who have powers with rapid cooldowns: Singularity, Pull, Slam, Lift Grenades. Even Liara's Warp can have a fairly quick cooldown (5.5 seconds at its lowest), and you can spec Stasis so it has a 30% chance of not causing a cooldown. 

 

NOTE: At launch, Stasis had a much quicker cooldown on Liara; the base cooldown for Stasis was increased in one of the game patches. 

 

The Engineer lacks squadmates with quick cooldown tech powers.

 

 

But I actually think that the Engineer is better than the Adept when it comes to combat. Some enemies can dodge projectile powers, but they cannot dodge Sabotage > Overload. Also, biotic powers (and biotic detonations) are weak against shields; the Engineer has no such weakness. The Engineer can kill a group of enemies about just as quickly as the Adept or Sentinel; it just may seem harder since the Adept can use Singularity/Pull > Throw twice in rapid succession, while the Engineer takes the same overall time but with Sabotage > Overload/Incinerate.

 

 

* * * 

 

I am not sure what you mean "The damage reduction is too small for what I have to give up"?

 

What are you giving up exactly?

 

You certainly do not need Fortification/Barrier/Defense Matrix. I just like using those powers since rank 5 can increase the Engineer's power damage (which is important for tech powers) while providing damage reduction.

 

Keep in mind that you take about +40% more damage while out of cover. Barrier/Defense Matrix can provide up to +30% damage reduction when active and Fortification can provide up to +40% damage reduction when active. Defense Matrix can also replenish your shields when purged.

 

You certainly do not need damage reduction; all classes can get by without always having some sort of power that reduces incoming damage. If you feel like you want to use another bonus power, then take another bonus power.

 

* * *

 

If you do not like the Engineer, that is fine. I am not telling you to like the Engineer. Some people just do not like tech powers or tech combos or drones/turrets. That is fine. If you are not getting any enjoyment out of it no matter how you build it, quit playing. No sense playing something you hate. 

 

Try some different builds with it, see if you find something that you enjoy. The Engineer is one of the most flexible classes in the game.

[Bigdawg13]

 

* * * 

 

I am not sure what you mean "The damage reduction is too small for what I have to give up"?

 

What are you giving up exactly?

 

Let's talk about what you gain first.  I don't recall the exact details, but you gain, roughly 30% damage reduction and 20-30% power damage boost (can't remember the details).

 

What did it cost?

1. Skill points for starters.  Skill points that could go into high-end ranks of incinerate, overload, or sabotage.  But you also could have put the points into drone, turret, cryoblast, etc.  Rank 5 (which gives the power boost), costs 15 points.  An import only has 40 points or so. 
2. Skill recharge.  50-60% recharge penalty!!!  That really hurts.  Sure you can compensate by wearing inferno armor or something, but at what other cost?  For every bonus you get on an armor set, there is the opportunity cost of other armor that you miss out on.
3. Weapon selection.  By relying on a power for survival like this, you hurt your recharge rate.  So maybe you compensate by choosing lighter weapons.  That can diminish gameplay if you dislike pistols or weeny SMG pew pew pew.  Not saying I have anything against them, just pointing out what you may have to give up.

Sure dropping 15 points into a high level character is a moot point, but most Bioware games become silly easy at high levels.  Weapon weights matter less when you can fully upgrade them, and use high level light weight mods.  But when you start out, ... I dunno, it just isn't working for me.

 

I went back and started over, and ignored part of the build.  I pretty much ignore overload unless I see something with shields.  So my primary hot keys are combat drone, sabotage, and incinerate.  I still have overload (up to neural shock) for targets with shields, but I almost never use it.  I realized this was an infiltrator who swapped drone for cloak so I gibbed my class over for the Javik mission.  I was bored to tears with cloak.  (My first play through years ago was an infiltrator, and head shots get old...plus shield-gate kind of ruined it for me to some extent).  My point is, the drone really does help a lot.  I may try swapping it out for cryoblast too, but we'll see.

 

And ... I really want to say thank you to everyone who posted on this thread.  I don't normally scramble like this out of frustration.  But I really wanted to make the engineer work.

[cap and gown]

Are you coming in at level 1 or level 30? If you are coming in at level 30, then you are able to max out one power to begin with, take Fortification up to rank 5, and Tech Mastery up to rank 6 and still have 4 points left. (I chose to max out Overload) By the time you get to Menae you will have enough points to take another power to rank 5. (I chose Incinerate for the Brutes) After Menae you can farm points by doing various little fetch quests for folk on the Citadel, such things as planet scanning, Aria's stuff, and a visit to Bryson's lab to get to level 37 by the next mission. This would allow maxing 2 powers, taking another power to rank 5, Tech Mastery to rank 5, and Fortification to rank 5. You can also reset your powers while at this "low" level to go with the optimal power mix for the next mission. For instance, you don't really need sabotage on Mars or Menae. Overload and Incinerate would work just fine. Then you could reset your powers to max Sabotage when facing Cerberus.

[capn233]

Post patch 1.05, Fortification should have a 0.5 base penalty, which is exactly the same as taking 0.5 extra weapon weight, which sort of works to 50% PRS.

 

Whether or not it is actually a big deal will depend on your weapon loadout and level.  In the mid 30's, you could have weight capacity bonuses from Tech Mastery that would somewhat mitigate the penalty.

 

In any case, the build I would run with Fortification around 35, limiting actives, is something like

 

Incinerate 5 (Radius, Burning)

Overload 6 (Chain, NS, Shield)

Drone 4 (Explosive)

Tech Mastery 5 (Power Damage, Damage & Capacity)

Fitness 4 (Durability)

Fortification 4 (Durability)

 

This is pretty vanilla stuff, but you can pull off the two best tech combos nearly at will, with bonus detonation from Drone.  What is unfortunate is that you very rarely can get multiple FE's detonating Incinerate with Overload given the radius of the former.  If you don't really like those two powers though, tech in general might not be for you and you best option for a "tech" character might just be Sentinel.

 

Getting back to weapons, most aren't really specialized in ME3 anyway, at least not in comparison to ME2.  It is basically just power tiers, so taking a single light weapon isn't very punishing if you pick the right one.

[fraggle]

Just for fun, and because I also have a few questions I'm posting my test video

First part is Engineer Lv. 38, which is pretty close to yours, with Overload, Incinerate and Cryo Blast, Turian Platoon.

And a bit Lv. 42, same setup, some Citadel Coup stuff.

For me, these 3 powers are enough to manage. I'm not that good and I get through just fine mostly. Except when I do stupid stuff, like also in the video from time to time, or screw up combos because I hit the wrong hot key

The stuff Sabotage can do is amazing, but I think CB is a good power when not dealing with geth. In terms of combos I felt it was almost similar to my Adept run when I combo'd myself off from time to time, but then I love powers and their combos because I suck at shooting mostly, so maybe that's why I do stuff like that.

I used basic (some would say crappy ) weapons, no power damage mods, the standard armor, barely invested in Fitness, so there's still a lot more room for improvement and more power damage/faster cooldowns.

Went with EDI with Incinerate and James with Carnage and Incendiary Squad Ammo.

Spoiler

 

Ok, so my questions for Shepard's setup:

1. For Incinerate, does it make more sense to invest in Freeze Combo like I did for this test? I combo myself off a lot of times with CB and Incinerate because they fit so neatly together (the time it takes for a target to properly freeze is the time you have to wait until you can use your next power). Or is it generally better to go for armor? I went for armor for EDI and James though because I myself didn't.

2. For Overload, I saw folks go for Chain Overload, while I always go for more damage to make sure a shield is gone for sure. But then of course it might be gone with Chain Overload too when generally power damage is increased enough with bonus stuff I guess?

3. In Tech Mastery, for Rank 5 I chose to increase my own power damage bonus and the weight capacity instead of increasing squadmate power damage, which I would, in hindsight choose next time because some enemies were left with a bit of health after an Overload/Incinerate or Carnage combo.