A non-PvP Engineers perspective

Ok I can finally put my money where my mouth is....

For a bit of a change my guild team decided to help the Omni defence in PM last night. While the whole experience was somewhat amusing, there are some things I would like to point out from a 'casual gamer' and 'non-PvP player/class' point of views (some of these things will already have come up). In case you're interested my character was Technoman I'm level 60 Nanomage Engineer and my PvP experience extends to a single arena duel prior to this

Level ranges
For a level 75 base there were actually only a handful of players we could actually attack. Most of the attending clanners we're well over the level of the zone and our PvP range. Either these guys were very bored or they were hoping some high level Omnis would show up once their presence was reported (which didnt happen while I was there)

Healing
What the high level players did do was (you guessed it) heal the lower players. Since we didnt appear to have any high level healers there was no way we were going to get anywhere.

Engineers
You still have a loooonnggggg way to go before I will probably consider getting into PvP with my Engineer again - there just isnt any point. Didnt know where my bot was half the time (pathing over elevation changes), have little or no defence against...well anything and have no offensive punch either (new AMD made no difference to bots damage at this level). Since I cant yet cast the sloughing fields or the bot snares I cant comment on those, but what I will say is that the Clanners were not really running in fear from me so the snare/root wouldnt have been any use, and since I wasnt getting killed by specials Sloughing wouldnt have made a difference either.

The nearest thing I got to a kill was one Clanner (Darkhero IIRC) who ignored me and the bot for too long while killing a Fixer guildmate - he then terminated rather than die. This was very frustrating given the situation (i.e. was so close to a kill and would have been the only one) so perhaps a 'disgrace period' needs to be put on the terminate command in a PvP zone?

I'd also like to extend my sarcastic thanks to the clanners (especially Finger19 IIRC) who provided me with seconds of amusement with their witty comments at my deaths. I know its a game, and i know its war and all that, but come on guys killing an Engineer cant be the highlight of your PvP career (or is it!). My ignore list welcomes you with open arms :-). I dont mind a good gloat, but keep it to vicinity chat.

Misc
Actually I didnt notice any lag, dont know if this was because of the changes in the last patch (which has transformed Newland - nice work) or the numer of people (although there seemed to be a few) but having said that I didnt witness any towers being attacked (only them helping the clanners to kill me) so that may be why.

Conclusion
If the booster is trying to bring PvP to the masses, IMO it has failed at this point (certainly as far as Engineers are concerned). Now that I know how (un)effective I am in PvP I wont bother to get my org to build a tower as we would rely 100% of other orgs aid to defend it

As I've said numerous times, the Engineer needs something to keep him alive while the bot does the work. I've given plenty of suggestions in the past but a brief summary is this

Something like Nulity that lets the bot take all/% of the damage inflicted on the Engineer. Lets put those HP's to work since no one attacks the bot anyway since its easier to take the Engineer out (actually think at least one guy was shocked yesterday when the bot kept going after I died because the bot wont go to the reclaim with the Eng if the save point is in the same zone - still only got to survive for 60 secs before it deactivates)

The blind is useless in PvP (and also effects non-guild allies in a 5% zone), you must have your reflects running and bracers etc in PvP it seems, please consider making the blind stick even if the blinded person is damaged (or give us something else)

Some type of debuff would be nice, after last night I was getting really tired of Traders - a 'gremlin nano' aura perhaps which puts the reqs on equipment up so the enemy goes OE. Not strictly a debuff but the effect is the same.

Either make all of Rubi-Ka flat or sort out pathing over elevation changes. I have time to guide the bot to a target in PvM but time is something I dont have in PvP

While the high level Engineers report good things about the AMS buffs, I really cant say I've noticed any difference at the lower levels. Since the bot actually hitting doesnt seem to be a problem at lower levels how about having the lower level AMS buffs add more damage and less attack rating?

I have an high AC due to my Symp aura and AC buff coupled with my standard armour. Why doesnt this seem to make any difference (this is rhetorical - I know why, the question is should this not be changed?)

Different damage types for the bot - Ok without getting into the whole 'Bot and ranged weapons' debate, different damage types would be nice. Everyone knows they do Melee, so everyone knows what to expect. Radiation, Poison and Chemical damage would ****e things up a bit

Oh and ranged weapons on the bot as well please :-)

-edit-
Typos and more stuff

Of course giving us the Kamikazi bot in it current state would be a great help

You Trader Die!
Ka-Boom
NEXT!

Glorious :-)

rofl, I would give a ton of creds to see the look on someones face the first time anyone got blown up.

O_O

<Poor Dead Ganker>wth was that, a bugged bot?

<Hawt Ded Secsy Engie> Tee hee hee

Sorry your intro to land control was less than great, Warlock. The terminating in combat is really lame. A long time back, I remember a post from FunCom saying that terminating in combat would give a huge minus to PvP title points. I don't think that was ever implemented; and it wouldn't matter if you don't want a title anyway.

Didn't engies get an AMS debuff recently? I thought I heard that it was pretty effective. Maybe that's the blind you're talking about. I know that NT blinds stick when you're being hit. I've experienced that one personally several times.

I'm not sure how much more offensive capability they'd be willing to give engies. I think you've been stuck in the "support" category, meaning you're not supposed to score many solo kills. Maybe your buffs that effect nearby allies could get boosted a little. The problem with boosting your allies is it still doesn't feel like you're contributing much. The numerical effect is there, but not the feeling.

Maybe they'd let you warp your pet to the attack target if you use a nano that sacrifices some of your pets health. 20% of remaining health maybe. But I'd bet lots of ideas like that have popped up on the engie forum before.

I personally have developed some respect for engy's in group pvp situations. I spend most of my time in tower attacks/defense with my trader but I decided I wanted to give my 106 agent a try on a raid to Stret East Bank. I gridded in and started my sneak attack. I was soon spotted by a 120-130 engy who sicked her warbot on me and forced me to root and run because she had me to half life in no time. I looked for the engy but it was very crowded with people so I had to retreat. The main problem I had was that the bot (Fluffy) was still engaged with me so I couldn't heal. I waited for 10 minutes or so before Fluffy broke attack so I could heal and start my sneak attack again. This time I found the engy and gave her a rather weak AS (my luck) and a couple regular hits before Fluffy was sicked on me and again forcing me to root and retreat cause of the damage output of the bot. After yet another 10-15 minutes i was able to heal and approach again. This time I didn't see the engy but did find a nice plump atrox soilder who didn't see me :). I AS'd him for half his life and he FA and Burst me for about half mine so it was going to be a close fight. Sorry to say as the fight was just getting good along come Fluffy and off I go to the reclaim. So not only did the engy have a hand in my death she also tied me up for 20 or so minutes thus preventing me from killing some other poor soul. Engy's may not be great in one on one matches but it's easy to hide in a crowd. Granted the land was kinda flat in the area though.

p.s. I am by no means a super twinked agent but not gimped by a long shot (got my first 10k AS yesterday) :)

only the new absorbers really help engineers in pvp now. pathing is still gamestopper no 1 outdoors (giving pet attack command and it does nothing, just standing there stuck), also runspeed is a problem, everyone can just outrun the bot and get out of my range and i end up searching my bot. 1 mezz/charm and my bot is fu, and i need more than 5 mins to prepare a new one (nice new buffs need too much nano, also the team 2 absorber needs ca. 3k nano to cast). the bot-snare is useless, never ticks in the right moment, breaks too quick and the debuff is too little to be effective. the anti root shield for the bot is too short in duration.

if your a tradeskill engineer like me, you can only use the bot to scare non-root professions, thats all you can do. i wish fc gives us a better grenade launcher, ot12 reload time with 10 clip is still way too long (standing 8 sec. reloading is too much), and its range sucks too :). but thats just dreaming i know fc favors other professions and gives them nice stuff every patch.

As a 150 engy i did not have a very nice intro to land control either. Everyone KNOWS engys are easy to kill so we are the first ones targeted. I was with 20 omni attacking a clan base in PW. Guess who was targeted first? I had a special (4) shield up, which absorbed 2 bursts and 2 AS, but a little later came a full auto and yet another AS to send me right to reclaim. When i returned with my yalm, I was suprised to find my bot still there, charmed, and killing my own teammates. What use is our bot if we die even before it gets there? The thing is that the one minute "prep time" you have gives ppl plenty of time to single out who their first targets are gonna be. Engys (in the rare occasion that they pvp) are almost always first in this targeting list.

Engies are supposed to suck in pvp. That being said, FC really needs to work on some issues it sounds like. Number one would be pet pathing. Thats an old problem that has been plaguing pet classes for a long time. It's not an intentional screw over like the engi's lack of offensive punch. They should also make pets immune to charm. Putting lots of effort into a bad mofo bot, only to have it turn around and start slaughtering your team mates is pretty lame. (Kinda like just barely equipping that super cool weapon, only to have a baby eating trader come along and send it straight to 25%.)

Engi's being completely inviable in PVP doesn't really fit in with FC's rock, paper, scissors model... And is also really really not fun nor fair.

It's more like rock, paper, scissors, feather... no prizes for guessing which profession gets feather status, naturally everything beats feather ;)

During the couple of battles I've taken my engineer to I scored 1 kill against an agent 25 levels below mine who rooted and ignored my bot just long enough for me to break the root while he was trying to heal.

However, I spend most of my time trying to figure out where the stupid bot went. The only reason I lasted anywhere near as long as I did in the PVP zones is my 1005 run speed.

The bot AMS buff is certainly nice, but to a large extent the bot isn't near the fight.

The Anti-root nanos don't last long enough (1 minute) to stop the bot being rooted.

The Blind breaks on a single point of damage and only has a 1 metre range (aura).

The shield we have that absorbs special attacks is nice, no problems with that, but does not in itself make us able to survive a fight.

I've never seen the snare aura from the bot actually do anything except provide me with two screens of spam every 30 seconds.

In the mean time, my NT is much more useful in a fight and a hell of a lot more fun.