After testing the Engineer and playing it for a while with the old turret buffs, nerfs, and all the other changes, I'd like to talk about the PTR changes and a massive nerf from a couple of years ago that was never properly adjusted. It has basically made Engineer in sieges incredibly boring to play, especially in forts or any situation with multiple Engineers in the same area. It's not just an Engineer issue either, and with the current player count, it has become much more obvious how it affects the game. I played before this was changed, and while it was a little too powerful back then, I think that after all the recent patches it's finally time to properly fix or buff ranged DPS by increasing the stack limit of certain AoE abilities.
The green highlighted part is what makes certain ranged AoE abilities so weak. Engineer has two of them: Napalm and Phosphorous Shells. I understand that funneling ranged damage into one location can be very powerful in certain situations, but so is stacking an entire warband and simply sliding into a keep because the game can't handle the number of players running through the gate at the same time. I'm not asking to remove the limit completely, but at least let three of those effects stack. The same applies to Rain of Fire and other abilities on both factions.
Engineer is one of the most played classes and probably will be for quite a while, yet two of its abilities are basically useless in a lot of the game's content. You have two or three Grenadier Engineers in a scenario? You basically lose because two of your abilities barely do any damage anymore, or at least not enough to stop the melee blob running at you. You have 40 Engineers in a fort? You get run over because only one of them can actually contribute meaningful damage during the push. You can never really create ranged pressure anymore unless the target is a fresh RR40 running a full glass cannon build without guard. Sure, you still have your grenades, but its nothing but fluff damage. The only reason they contribute decent damage overall is because you can spam them constantly, but individually they don't really do much besides applying the corporeal resistance debuff.
I don't think Drake Shot will fix that (Another tactic slot btw). There are still two abilities that become extremely situational, and one of them, Napalm, barely does any meaningful damage. Arguably the worst part is that these are abilities you have to heavily invest in just to unlock. They're not baseline abilities like Rain of Fire. If Napalm were a high-impact, hard-hitting ability, then fair enough, but right now I honestly think its only purpose is to feed the enemy warband free morale for 25 seconds after they disengage.
Engineer isn't a bad class, but it's heavily limited by the fact that so many of its tools are either extremely situational or require significant investment. The PTR didn't really address any of that. Speaking of useless abilities. What about Friction Burn or Static Discharge? Shock Grenade, anyone? I rediscovered that ability on the PTR, I had completely forgotten it even existed because it's just that useless. The 1.5 second cast time Keg that wont even heal the damage of a single tick from any dot in the game? Meanwhile there is abilities that hit hard and heal for a good amount of damage during its use. You have to invest 13 point to get Magnet a skill that is also very situational, shares immunity with Punt (Thanks for giving every Tank an aoe punt), can be defended against and it does not even do damage at all. I'm not saying its a bad ability but all this combind makes Engi really frustrating to play. You use Phosphorus Shells? No damage. You use your Magnet? Nothing happens because everyone was immune before the fight even started, you throw down Napalm? You feel bad for feeding the enemy warband moral.
Engineer now gets a baseline critical hit tactic, which makes us even more dependent on the turret. At the same time, it locks us even further into specific tactic choices because who wouldn't take 15% crit in virtually every build defensive or not? I can't really judge how useful the Signal Flare changes will be yet. More tactics have been added that could be useful, but there simply isn't enough room for them unless you're willing to sacrifice all mobility. Well-Oiled is basically mandatory in warbands, and honestly in general gameplay as well, with people constantly moving out of your range.
Will Engi be better? Slightly. Will it be more useful? Well in certain cases probably but the draw back is still mobility and the fact that you are super limited in terms of Tactics. Will it be more fun to play? Idk it plays exactly the same. I honestly cant feel a single change between my live and ptr Engi besides a little more ST damage and the turrets do like 10-15% more damage but while that might sound alot, most of the turrets hit for 80-120 lol.
That's my take on Engi. The ST spec seems pretty good now, hopefully something that works but well its a stationary damage build, how is that useful in a game that punishes you for standing still at any time because some manic choppa is chasing you down with damage I cant even do standing still.. For me this is a missed chance to make the class fun and less clunky to play but I guess Engi is just supposed to be a watered down Magus without the quality of life Magus has and the unique new Teleport? they get. Meanwhile my Engineer can't even reinforce the turrets as a class around building and enhancing stuff..
