Leeching in PQ’s in low t2? Acid grenade is there for a reason. Those AoEs and DoTs (have you even noticed the neat DoT you get at lvl 9?) add up real fast against mobs, giving you gobs of contribution points for the final tally, but not fast enough to aggro end-bosses, making engineers the ultimate lootwhore class in PQ. I’m constantly getting green or better loot bags in PQs ever since level 5 (when I got the acid grenade, incidentally ;).

This: “In RvR, I must accept that I cannot solo anything except a fellow ranged DPS, unless I significantly out-level the target” is also quite amazing and nothing like my experience.

Equal-level clothies are dead easy to solo with grenades, grenade turret and the expert skirmisher tactic (yes, even the witch elf once you understand the power of barbed wire and the fact that, well, the mine is primarily a defensive, not an offensive weapon).

Offensive tanks (of any race) can’t be out-DPS-ed but CAN be out-damaged overall simply because as a ranged class you start dealing out damage way earlier than they do. Don’t be afraid to use your spanner if things get rough :).

Deffensive tanks, well, I just ignore, or knockback if they happen to land right beside me, as Orcs seem to be so fond of doing atm. Must be the barbed wire.

Overall, it sounds like you really want to play a rifleman. Sadly, it’s a spec that is a bit underpowered in t2. The turret is especially useless.

I advocate getting into the scenarios from level 1, and figuring out how to be effective with the smaller toolset you have. If you can do that, then gaining levels just makes you more effective, as opposed to just becoming effective. I definately don’t feel like a leech. Flipside on that, I see players at the top of the level range for that tier that can’t get their act together, and are definately leeching.

I still need to remember that detaunt, its the one thing I wish I was better at.

I play it very support, use my land mines, concussion nades etc. to keep the enemy off myself and friends pretty much all the time whilst constantly have my DoTs being applied.

Thus it means I play it very upclose, which has meant me going down the Tinker spec and thus the majority of my stats are Toughness and Wounds with some Ballistic skill if it’s around. I also do alot of flag carrying and it tends to come off quite well. Trying to pin down an Engineer is alot of work because of all our abilities (although we work better helping our flag carriers get away from the enemy). The reason I explain this is because the first thing I read shocked my personally

“single target burst damage and AE damage-over-time. Survivability is still low”

But then it’s down to how you gear your Engineer and which Mastery direction you go. At the same time I have found if you want more survivability take the Morale 2 ability (I forget it’s name) that gives 10s immunity and quicker DPS. It’s FAR more effective than your +100% damage move and it means your Rifle shot is also tons more effective.

Personally I barely drop my turret at the moment - I don’t tend to have the AP for it unless i’m rigidly defending. I just tend to leave it by a chokepoint/flag with a landmine and get defending further on.

Also, as a Black Orc, for some reason I have a hard time resisting the urge to chase Engineers around. It might be the barbed wire.

If I am trying to burn people down, I throw the fire grenade because its cool down is very low and I can get a ton of them out quick, but I’m starting to use the aoe shotgun blast more and the hipshot.

Again, great article.