[Engineer] How ES changes effect the class

[Pumatouch]

because, let's not fool ourselves, you need SOME way of reducing your turrets costs as any kind of Engi spec

No.
You lads need to be sneaky and well prepared, make a habit of setting turret every 2-300 feet for Redeploy.
Getting a fast turret is nice, but the buffstacking which is what makes you effective is gonna take time at any rate.

[Forwe]

Well, to set it up beforehand you need to dismount AND know that a fight is to be expected. Yes, it works during our Gunlines, but that's cause we sometimes even move somewhere on foot, not many warbands do so. Most of the time though, when the fight starts, there was no prep time; you need to hard-cast it, and if you DID manage to somehow pre-cast it, you will need to burn both 60AP and 20second cooldown on Redeploy. There's also the matter of either dropping a fast turret at that pesky Witch Elf/Marauder that's on your backline to self-destruct it(or on their healers when you manage to get there) and then needing to build another one FAST, either Flame to keep dodge/disrupt up, or Gun to actually deal any damage as a Rifleman, and sometimes the turret just gets plain destroyed and needs rebuildin'. All of these points are(or were, in case of ES) migitated (stronger, but more focused) by W-OM and(slighter, but with added melee survivability/support via keg and Lighting Rod) by ES.

Tbh, it's mostly the burning of Redeploy which hurts. In many cases, during those 20secs the fight has changed place, or your priority targets changed places, and you need to move, either a bit or a bit further, and you will need to waste 3 seconds on building a turret;3 seconds during which you both keep losing Improvised Upgrades and can't deal any damage, throw kegs or magnet people.

[Karast]

Sometimes the issue is with the cart and not the horse.

The recent changes to ES hurt, but they had to be done for a number of reasons, but they do high light the core issue everyone has been tip toeing about and grumbling about forever.

Simply put the engi / magus mechanic is clunky. ES helped smooth it out a bit, but with it gone everyone is going to go back to wom instead. We can go blue in the face making balance posts about it and ranting and raving for cast on the move turrets or reduced turret cast times, or even just a shorter CD on redeploy, but it seems to be the devs are pretty happy with the state of things, which is not all that bad really, and most if not all proposals for cleaning up turrets get rejected.

So you just got to grit your teeth and bare it.

If you plan to get up close and personal you can largely ignore the turret and go for trench fighting instead, since WOM or no you are never going to have any real number of stacks if it is a mobile fight and you are AoE'ing in the front. Use that redeploy for the knock down, use bombardment turret to hold a few stacks just a little longer, and then go to town with friction burn, blunderbuss, and maybe phosphorus shells and hip shot if you are keen on a weird rifle / tinker setup.

[Nameless]

Imo wop should be part of default turret mechanic so engi become more in line with fast-paced fighting system at ror. You still need time to build stacks so that balance instant turret pretty well

[Forwe]

Yeah, I know that the changes had to be done, as "harmful" as they might have been according to me ^^. Unfortunately, especially as a Rifleman(a spec I've played the most), you need some kind of quicker turrets to actually get those few stacks of IU to deal any damage, and ES gave that nice niche of halving the cast time of Gun Turret and adding some unexpected punch in melee. There've been plenty of occasions where a Choppas tried to attack me, and I could git them with quickened Crack Shot for disarm and then halved cast times on attacking skills, which is something I could not accomplish with just Trench Fighting, the 2sec casts on Gun skills are too unfeasible in melee; but even then, it was just an addition, the main reason I took it was for halved Turrets casts. Now that it's gone, I'll just need to take W-OM, cause there isn't enough tactic slots as a Rifleman for both W-OM and current ES.

[Pumatouch]

Updated https://github.com/WarEmu/WarBugs/issues/9320

The Shadow Warrior fix: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=24072
- Hardcode so that expert skirmisher correctly affects Lileaths arrow or shoot through ya, the client is however hardcoded to change the castbar if out of range but the cast wont go off earlier

Apparently Engineers got hit by this Shadow Warrior fix to friendly builds like turrets, while everyone else using pets are in the clear. Why is that?

[Natherul]

at the time when I wrote that patch note I did not know that ES was shared with more then SH and SW. It applies to all versions of ES

[Pumatouch]

at the time when I wrote that patch note I did not know that ES was shared with more then SH and SW. It applies to all versions of ES

No it does not at the time. Squig Herders can build fast pets with impunity using that exact tactic. They have not been subject to the fix. Only SW and Engineer have. The patch only really mentions the SW aspect of it. We Engineers just took it for granted that this is how ES/CQ works now.
Also, there's an identical twin to Expert Skirmisher called Close Quarters, as is in the Bugtracker name. It does exactly the same with the same wording, but has not been subject to any fix.

[Natherul]

at the time when I wrote that patch note I did not know that ES was shared with more then SH and SW. It applies to all versions of ES

No it does not at the time. Squig Herders can build fast pets with impunity using that exact tactic. They have not been subject to the fix. Only SW and Engineer have. The patch only really mentions the SW aspect of it. We Engineers just took it for granted that this is how ES/CQ works now.
Also, there's an identical twin to Expert Skirmisher called Close Quarters, as is in the Bugtracker name. It does exactly the same with the same wording, but has not been subject to any fix.

Not true, I just checked on my local, the casterbar is not correct for squigs. ES does not speed up the cast.

In the case for close quarters is because its set differently in the DB and does not use the fix. So there is nothing wrong in code.

[Pumatouch]

Imma get back to you on the SH one, soon.