Everyone knows that the Engineers got a pretty big nerf in comparison to the buffs that virtually every other class got with drop 3. I wanted to start off by saying that this nerf was completely warranted, in my opinion. Not only were we the best DPS class, but the best Tank class, and likely were able to do this with the most utility alternatives simultaneously. Engineers simply did not scale correctly with their T8 abilities, and had WAYYYY too much ultility, in terms of personal CDs and stuns. I am quite happy that they have closed this gap and made other classes considerably more competitive.
What does that mean for us? Well, quite frankly, it means less damage, less utility, less movement, and less stuns. We did also get a pretty significant buff to a few abilities, such as Mortar Strike and Volatile Injection that make our class a little more interesting.
I am going to try and go into a bit more detail than the last guide, since all of this is pretty foreign to everyone. I will ask that you provide feedback if you experience different results. While I tested out this build and have been using it pretty exclusively over the weekend, I by no means am an expert.
Abilities and LAS:
There has been a lot of discussion around what abilities you should be using post drop 3. A few things to note are that this build considers you to be full amp unlocked and at least 46/48 on your abilities. Since this build is so new to me, I am not sure what would be a base build for a fresh 50, but I will do my best to guess. I can, however, see that this build could end up being worse than the old build if you aren't EG capped due to the way the T4 and T8 bonuses work. In this build, I am parsing around 6600 on the dummy. Unfortunately, comparing this to pre drop is a bit skewed because of the changes to not only our AP, but also the armor on test dummies. As a comparison to the build post drop 3, it is about a 600-800 DPS difference in the current gear that I have.
If had no ability unlocks, this is likely what I would use:
As you can see, I would throw the points as I get them in to Mortar Strike and Volatile Injection.
Clearly, we are not afforded as much utility or interrupts with this new build, we are actually kind of hosed until we unlocked 48/48, to be honest. I would gather that speccing into T8 MS would grant an additional 800-1000 DPS. Unfortunately, you can't just spec into that because the other tier milestones are more important. There is definitely a trade off between survivability and damage done, but that is a change that was required for balance. I chose the damage output. If you would like to discuss some more utility in your build, PM me and we can try and theory craft through it. You will also notice that I am carrying Electrocute vs. Bolt Caster. There are a couple theories behind it, but I can't really tell if there is any noticeable deterioration to my damage output between the two, at least at this gear level. First, there is still a lot of opportunity to cleave on virtually every boss in GA, so I don't mind running electrocute. Secondly, every ability in the LAS is a technology ability. So there is a much greater benefit to Electrocute than BC. The negative impact to this is that we need to be much closer to the boss, since the electrocute range is about 60% that of BC.
Your rotation would go something like EA>VI>MS>ELE. Obviously you throw in your QB on CD. You prioritize your MS every time you have it off CD. Since there is no way to get around the EA cast, feel free to break the "never be under 30 volatility, EVER" rule.
I am going to assume you can read the tool tips and figure out why these abilities work well together, but if you have questions, feel free to ask.
AMPs:
I can't really tell you why this is the AMP spec to use, it's just something I saw in the forums but I know it has something to do with the additional critical rating in our innate being more useful than the AOE. I ran the same exact build on the old AMP spec and it was about a 300 to 400 DPS decrease, so that's what I am going with.
If I were a fresh 50, I would likely spec into this:
My first points would go in to Cruisin for A Bruisin, followed by the Dash Regen simply on the principality of Crit and Damage output.
Gear and Stats:
I am redoing this part a bit to include a spreadsheet that I used to help me select which runes I used where. I have the gear names, rune slots, as well as color coordination based off the type of set bonus I am putting where. Not that I don't trust rune master, I feel that excel works better for me. It included all the possible DPS runes that are included for each element as well as set bonuses.
Ultimately, you are shooting for the following set bonuses:
20/20 Fusion Blast OR 12/12 Assassin (Fusion Blast is definitely better, but each shadow blast fragment is currently 4plat so I decided to just Assassin)
12/12 Technophile
12/12 Weapon Specialist
6/15 Supercharged ExoSuit
With the addition to rune slots, you should have no problem getting at least 3 of the 4 listed above. In my build, I am only 8/12 Technophile. That said, I am considering switching from 12/12 Weapon Specialist to 12/12 Technophile since I will likely be using Electrocute instead. At the end of the day, it wont make much of a difference in your DPS output, so I will probably just wait until I can reroll some of my more useless slots and just spec in to 12/12 Technophile, and 11/15 Supercharged Exosuit at the same time.
You will notice that I don't have any logic runes. I ended up biting the bullet and spending about 12 plat on rerolling the 4 I had. Everything else useable if you have them.
With the changes to AP, you are better off speccing into Finesse until you hit the bonus cap, which is the milestone at 1575. You need to take in to consideration food buffing and flasking, so the number you should be shooting for around 1453. I would just shoot for 1460 and call it a day. Once you have finesse that high, you start speccing back into AP runes.
My Post 3 Stats are as follows:
AP: 3,073 (Buffed = ~3,170)
Finesse: 1,462 (Buffed = ~1,584)
Strikethrough: 6.93%
Crit Chance: 19.00% (Bot = ~25.25%)
Crit Severity: 180.29%
As you can see, things are pretty different for us Engineers. If you have any specific questions that my guide can't answer, please ask! I will do my best to explain or help find an answer. I will again ask, if you find different results please also let me know. While this is a better build for me given my gear and EG progress, it may not be the case for some of us who are not as far progressed. I would also like to say that the old build is at least serviceable in this drop. So, if at all, you are hesitant on changing, stay with what you are using until you have time to get comfortable with the new build, or have a bit before you can reach you EG milestons.
Justin
What does that mean for us? Well, quite frankly, it means less damage, less utility, less movement, and less stuns. We did also get a pretty significant buff to a few abilities, such as Mortar Strike and Volatile Injection that make our class a little more interesting.
I am going to try and go into a bit more detail than the last guide, since all of this is pretty foreign to everyone. I will ask that you provide feedback if you experience different results. While I tested out this build and have been using it pretty exclusively over the weekend, I by no means am an expert.
Abilities and LAS:
There has been a lot of discussion around what abilities you should be using post drop 3. A few things to note are that this build considers you to be full amp unlocked and at least 46/48 on your abilities. Since this build is so new to me, I am not sure what would be a base build for a fresh 50, but I will do my best to guess. I can, however, see that this build could end up being worse than the old build if you aren't EG capped due to the way the T4 and T8 bonuses work. In this build, I am parsing around 6600 on the dummy. Unfortunately, comparing this to pre drop is a bit skewed because of the changes to not only our AP, but also the armor on test dummies. As a comparison to the build post drop 3, it is about a 600-800 DPS difference in the current gear that I have.
If had no ability unlocks, this is likely what I would use:
As you can see, I would throw the points as I get them in to Mortar Strike and Volatile Injection.
Clearly, we are not afforded as much utility or interrupts with this new build, we are actually kind of hosed until we unlocked 48/48, to be honest. I would gather that speccing into T8 MS would grant an additional 800-1000 DPS. Unfortunately, you can't just spec into that because the other tier milestones are more important. There is definitely a trade off between survivability and damage done, but that is a change that was required for balance. I chose the damage output. If you would like to discuss some more utility in your build, PM me and we can try and theory craft through it. You will also notice that I am carrying Electrocute vs. Bolt Caster. There are a couple theories behind it, but I can't really tell if there is any noticeable deterioration to my damage output between the two, at least at this gear level. First, there is still a lot of opportunity to cleave on virtually every boss in GA, so I don't mind running electrocute. Secondly, every ability in the LAS is a technology ability. So there is a much greater benefit to Electrocute than BC. The negative impact to this is that we need to be much closer to the boss, since the electrocute range is about 60% that of BC.
Your rotation would go something like EA>VI>MS>ELE. Obviously you throw in your QB on CD. You prioritize your MS every time you have it off CD. Since there is no way to get around the EA cast, feel free to break the "never be under 30 volatility, EVER" rule.
I am going to assume you can read the tool tips and figure out why these abilities work well together, but if you have questions, feel free to ask.
AMPs:
I can't really tell you why this is the AMP spec to use, it's just something I saw in the forums but I know it has something to do with the additional critical rating in our innate being more useful than the AOE. I ran the same exact build on the old AMP spec and it was about a 300 to 400 DPS decrease, so that's what I am going with.
If I were a fresh 50, I would likely spec into this:
My first points would go in to Cruisin for A Bruisin, followed by the Dash Regen simply on the principality of Crit and Damage output.
Gear and Stats:
I am redoing this part a bit to include a spreadsheet that I used to help me select which runes I used where. I have the gear names, rune slots, as well as color coordination based off the type of set bonus I am putting where. Not that I don't trust rune master, I feel that excel works better for me. It included all the possible DPS runes that are included for each element as well as set bonuses.
Ultimately, you are shooting for the following set bonuses:
20/20 Fusion Blast OR 12/12 Assassin (Fusion Blast is definitely better, but each shadow blast fragment is currently 4plat so I decided to just Assassin)
12/12 Technophile
12/12 Weapon Specialist
6/15 Supercharged ExoSuit
With the addition to rune slots, you should have no problem getting at least 3 of the 4 listed above. In my build, I am only 8/12 Technophile. That said, I am considering switching from 12/12 Weapon Specialist to 12/12 Technophile since I will likely be using Electrocute instead. At the end of the day, it wont make much of a difference in your DPS output, so I will probably just wait until I can reroll some of my more useless slots and just spec in to 12/12 Technophile, and 11/15 Supercharged Exosuit at the same time.
You will notice that I don't have any logic runes. I ended up biting the bullet and spending about 12 plat on rerolling the 4 I had. Everything else useable if you have them.
With the changes to AP, you are better off speccing into Finesse until you hit the bonus cap, which is the milestone at 1575. You need to take in to consideration food buffing and flasking, so the number you should be shooting for around 1453. I would just shoot for 1460 and call it a day. Once you have finesse that high, you start speccing back into AP runes.
My Post 3 Stats are as follows:
AP: 3,073 (Buffed = ~3,170)
Finesse: 1,462 (Buffed = ~1,584)
Strikethrough: 6.93%
Crit Chance: 19.00% (Bot = ~25.25%)
Crit Severity: 180.29%
As you can see, things are pretty different for us Engineers. If you have any specific questions that my guide can't answer, please ask! I will do my best to explain or help find an answer. I will again ask, if you find different results please also let me know. While this is a better build for me given my gear and EG progress, it may not be the case for some of us who are not as far progressed. I would also like to say that the old build is at least serviceable in this drop. So, if at all, you are hesitant on changing, stay with what you are using until you have time to get comfortable with the new build, or have a bit before you can reach you EG milestons.
Justin