Ultimate/Consolidated Engineer breed choice guide

[Uaintseenme]

The Evul ones have ears everywhere, and evade engy is heresy

heh up untill i started my new baby engie (opi OF COURSE! and an ma) i too believed that evades where for wimpy people with no back bone.
My main engie (220 and OPI!) has not a single point of ip spent in any evades, i just put it down to the price of being the best trade skilelr who ever lived, i almost dont think of my new engie as an engie, evades+dmg.... its like a whole different prof.


ps. All you non Opi engies should go reroll now or you will be first against the wall when the revoltion comes!

VIVA LA OPI REVOLUTION!

[muha]

...
Opi:
+ More IP for skills, as abilities are cheper
+ Quite easier to get on most symbs at 200+ and especially at end game
+ Easier to get on Combined Sharpshooter
+ More evades
+ More AS-skill
+ More AR with engi weapons ( grenade and pistols)

- Crappy ShadowBreed (clan at least)
- Less stamina => might not be able to equip 270 Chest at end game
- Will get 2sec's hp tick a few levels later
- Harder to get on Combined Commando and Paramedics (but why on earth would an engi use Paramedics anyway )
- Slightly less "exotic" weapon skills like burst and full auto

There are some viable points there, which I incorporated into the guide. However:

• IP cost I wrote as pro of atrox and con of soli. Nanomage and opi are between, with very little differnce.
• I don't agree symbs on opi are easier on 200+ than nanomage. I have yet to see an opi (or a soli) do the kind of setups I did, simple because they are impossible. I do agree on endgame ones.
• I believe SB for NM is even worse, but lets not argue
• I don't agree Burst is exotic. However, My math shows opi actually has better burst than soli, only trox has better.

[Alternity]

heh up untill i started my new baby engie (opi OF COURSE! and an ma) i too believed that evades where for wimpy people with no back bone.
My main engie (220 and OPI!) has not a single point of ip spent in any evades, i just put it down to the price of being the best trade skilelr who ever lived, i almost dont think of my new engie as an engie, evades+dmg.... its like a whole different prof.


ps. All you non Opi engies should go reroll now or you will be first against the wall when the revoltion comes!

VIVA LA OPI REVOLUTION!

I agree that opi ma engy full pvp mode sounds exciting, but I would prolly go trox for that prupose, due to perks

[IHaveHugeNick]

wut are evades?

[Alternity]

wut are evades?

heresy

[IHaveHugeNick]

heresy

BURN THE WITCH!!

[mechanuf]

Guys ... CSS buffs something strange called INIT too ... init is darkest kind of blue you can imagine for us. Why not have an armor to buff it?

True ... we dont evade much in PvP, but in PvM its usefull. Its nice to be able to blind a dyna camp, kill the boss ... and not even mind the adds. Full def, blind + evades make that fantasy true

Burst is a 100% standard engie and pistol user skill. Hard to beat its use in pvm. Not exotic at all. FA is.... less useful, but mainly because there are so few good wepons for it. I'd raise that any time if it gives me some nice toy. Let's see what Lost Eden brings. I heard rumors of a FA-Jame, although it might be Soldier-only.

Common misconception about Full Auto. Taste the word ... think of what it does and you'll see that its nice for every proff... with the right kind of theme in your gear. Key word is +dmg add and that can turn even the most crappy of all weapons into good weapons

[Alternity]

I vote for Beorin going MA and perking acording! As I want to know if ma trox engy pvp works first! Laik before I go and start sommit silly ke ke

[muha]

Guys ... CSS buffs something strange called INIT too ... init is darkest kind of blue you can imagine for us. Why not have an armor to buff it?

True ... we dont evade much in PvP, but in PvM its usefull. Its nice to be able to blind a dyna camp, kill the boss ... and not even mind the adds. Full def, blind + evades make that fantasy true

First, I'd state that I have nothing against evade engis. As long as you are aware of the fact that engis have the lowest evades in the game, and you are not going to evade anything on PvP, go ahead.
In fact, my evades are maxed as well, as I find myself tanking about half of the mobs anyway. And don't start telling me I team with gimp tanks. I usually team with very good players, who just prefer not to designate a tank. We all fight and we all tank. That's what good docs are for.
IMHO the question about CSS is not whether evades are good or not, but whether the 210 evade you get will make a difference. This isn't very hard to test - RI gives 120 evades, so you pretty much know what effect it has. In my experience, for the type of things I do PvM, RI is meaningless. If the mob is blinded, I evade it anyway, and if it is not, I don't evade it, with or without RI.
There might be some mob out there for which the 210 evades are exactly the break point between evading and not evading. I have yet to find that one.

Regarding inits, while CSS will save you some IP, it will not really help you. Our main problem is keeping SotOS 0/2.5 and not keeping the weapons 1/1, and CSS doesn't buff nano init AFAIR. So if, like myself, you insist on zero casting time of SotOS, you will end up at 50% aggdef or so, with or without CSS, and there is no point in even maxing ranged inits.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Only reason i'd go CSS its because its easier to equip and more ip friendly for a nanomage Other than that ...seriously its pvm only and in teams we dont need evades/when soloing pet tanks anyway and if you are tanking you die. Still i agree it can be great for controling adds. Im hoping LE bring extensions to a blinds line...

[Uaintseenme]

Still i agree it can be great for controling adds. Im hoping LE bring extensions to a blinds line...

YOU SEE!!!!
Again you wish you where opi..
Opi secondary genome "blinded by delights...

MORE blinds!

Stuff LE i dont believe it exists anyway.
Just rerol OPI!


VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

[Vlain]

OK, I've been reading this thread and others regarding engie breed, and I'm still having a difficult time seeing a winner between opi and soli with regard to a 220 pvp engie.

From what I've read there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of differance regarding the ability to equip high level armor/symbs/weapons etc...thus, the most defining differance I've noticed so far (if I'm reading correctly) seems to be within the realm of breed genome perks, and possibly SB. I'm no vet of engie forums, but I can see that there is some sort taboo regarding evades. Even if engies have the worst evades wouldn't the opi advantage make some difference in this area? I'm also leaning towards opi for the added AS benefit since all pvp is currently dominated by that special.

Someone please correct me, or expand/clarify this for me as I'm trying to decide which breed to reroll to. I currently have a 150ish NM engie which I intend to reroll before she gets any higher. She was originally intended to be a tradeskiller, but after some discussion with Toxic I've realized that traders are likely better tradeskillers (not a big fan of engie's dark blue psychology), so now I just want the best breed for an endgame pvp engie that I can get.

I'm already pissed that I need to reroll, but feeling confident that I've chosen correctly after reroll would take some of the sting out of it. Thanks in advance for any further clarification on this. Its so much easier to pick a breed for ma's.

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm in no way pvp expert, but my 2 cents are:

Solitus is the way to go because of:

1. Heal perks from genome line. Trust me you'll want any possible healing you can get. We have no other defenses than blockers and the cocoon, this can help you survive time between cocoon recharges.

2. Omni Soli SB is better then Opi for almost all proffesions, but especially for us because of the root - one of biggest problems imho is that people are kiting pets , add bad pathing and short pets range to that etc. After you use SB, by the time opponent gets unrooted, pets can kick poo out of him twice.

3. Overall better HP and easier to equip some HP buffing stuff (Leo boots anyone? ) . We are one of few proffesions that benefit from high hp setup because of the blockers.

Even if engies have the worst evades wouldn't the opi advantage make some difference in this area?

Opi advantage in this area is too small compared to solitus to cover our disadvantage Check the skill emu if you want - even at 220 its just a few points, and you will still be few hundreds short to make your evades even half effective in pvp.

[Vlain]

Okies, thanks for the added input HugeNick. Between comments here and comments from ingame friends, I guess I'll be going with soli. I was expecting a little more fight out of the pro-opi side, but I think you are probably right that any opi advantage is small compared to soli benefits.

Thanks again for the input.

[Takun]

I think you might want to throw a plug in for your self muha, about the symbs.. as you have it now you talk about how nanomage is better at middle game symb twinking and worse at end game.. well from what I and I think many others can tell, atm your our best symbiant twinker.. Now I dont know if that has to do with the fact that you actually just try / have the gear (the benefits of symbs scale badly after 220 imho) or the fact that your nanomage... Id love to have a little more intel / psy to be honest with you :P -- Unless your talking about the fact that you believe its more work to get end game symbs on for a nanomage for which I have no comment as I dont have a nanomage past level 165 ^^;

Basically I think you need to update this to include LE
Just my 2 cents.

(Small Necro)

[dantesho]

for 220 pvp i see atrox as the best profession, they have a lot of HP which is one of the keys and we don't need that much nano since all we cast is rippers/blinds during pvp

[muha]

I think you might want to throw a plug in for your self muha, about the symbs.. as you have it now you talk about how nanomage is better at middle game symb twinking and worse at end game...

I really don't know about this one. I saw a post on how easy a soli claimed he got the 300 eye in, I am working like hell to do that. The fact is no soli has gone to the efforts I did to get symbs on so we don't know.
I'd love to hear what other people think.
Edit: I had another thought on this. It might be that a soli will have much easier life getting 250ish symbs on than a nanomage, since very little perk resets are needed. But when it comes to doing 300 symbs, nanomage is easier. Again, I'd be very happy if some soli would share their experience.

[kuznechik]

I slapped my silverback on already.
So - no extreme twinking from now on... (kinda missing that 50 treat|50 int/psy|50 sta from weapons)
Well, unless FC releases non-trader locked shotgun or or pistol with AS (or ridiculously good grenade/re with AS or something of same PvP value).

So far I've got only 290 leg symb on and it wasn't something to write home about. (maybe 280 chest too, I don't remember ). I'll get 280 lhand when I get it, all other 280-290 symbs will be replaced by imps in my setup (both wrists, rhand, rarm are imps, eye is alien). About ql300 symbs - I'll calculate possibilities but guess I'll be lacking some treatment for it.

[Dragam]

We all fight and we all tank. That's what good docs are for.

Shivers at the thought of this sentence reaching the sold, shade or enf forums ^^ ...

[kuznechik]

pistol full-agg engi with peregrine and blinds is uber tank. Engi can get enough HP and our regular reflect > sold regular reflect. And unlike solds - we have some AoE taunt. Enfs are good meatsacks, but last time I've met enfo while camping imps at primus camp - I ended up asking him to not mongo, cause I was tanking mobs just fine and he was running crying "halp, I need doc" after few primuses look his way.
Damn, I'm missing pistol days... Can't hold aggro reliable anymore :/ Well, AS helps initially, but now I can lose it mid-fight.