[CLASS BUILD] The Engineer (shocking dps fighter artillery tank)

[Boeroer]

The Engineer is an animancer from the Living Lands - born as a boreal dwarf but tempted to discover the secrets of animancy and technology.

 

A workhorse among animancers, the Engineer’s strength lies in his soul-fueled, electrical-driven armor — a technological marvel, crafted personally by the Engineer as his journeyman project.

 

So equipped, the Engineer carrys out any mission involving animancy and  technology that he's interested in, from building mighty animats, inventing deadly missiles for his armor to delving into ancient ruins in search of long-forgotten knowledge — sometimes as part of a team of adventurers, but more often than not as an “independent” contractor.

 

The Engineer thinks he will find work and secrets aplenty in the Dyrwood, exploring engwithan ruins for more artifacts or overseeing expeditions. The harsh conditions have forced the Engineer to adapt his methods and equipment. Gone are the leather aprons and tidy toolboxes — replaced by armored plates and massive tools that also work as weapons. Now the Engineer is more soldier than scientist — more warrior than workman.

 

The Engineer's technological expertise lets him imbue his weapons and armor with the power of souls to deliver blasts of energy through devastating melee strikes, or directly from the armor itself while it constantly supports him with a stream of envigoring essence. His gear might be a bit weightier to accommodate all that technology — but "a good, heavy hammer is just the right tool for stubborn bolts ... and stubborn beasts!"

 

That combination of brawn and tech makes the Engineer a formidable front-line combatant — a powerhouse of melee attacks and ranged energy bursts.

 

He may be grumpy and cranky and a randy old devil - but he may also be the guy that pulls your butt out of the fire.

 

 

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The Engineer

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Difficulty: PotD v. 2.03

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Class: Fighter

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Race: Boreal Dwarf

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Background: Deadfire Archipelago - Labourer

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Stats:

 

MIG: 15

CON: 10

DEX: 15 

PER: 15 

INT: 15

RES: 08

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Skills: Stealth 4, Athl. 5, Lore 8, Mech. 4, Surv. 8 

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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

Weapon & Shield Style ®

Weapon Focus Ruffian

Weapon Mastery Ruffian

Vulnerable Attack

Penetrating Shot (!)

Prestidigitator's Missiles

Rapid Recovery 

 

Abilities

Hunter's Instincts (a)

Constant Recovery (a)

Knock Down

Confident Aim

Armored Grace ®

Weapon Spec. Ruffian

Critical Defense

Unbroken

Sundering Blow (!)

 

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Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended):

 

Weapon set 1: Blesca's Labour(*Shocking Lash, Durgan Refined) & Old Gerun's Wall (*Durgan Refined)

Weapon Set 2: Scon Mica's Roar

 

Boots: Animancer's Boots

 

Head: Liripipe of Thinking or The Pilgrim's Lasting Vigil (then put 8 points into lore)

 

Armor: He Carries Many Scars

 

Neck: Cloak of the Tireless Defender® or Cloak of Minor Missiles®

 

Belt: Belt of Bountiful Healing® or Girdle of the Driving Wave

 

Rings: Ring of Protection, Ring of Deflection

 

Hands: Bracers of All-Consuming Rage

 

Quick slots: Bronze Horn Figurine (summons Animat), Scroll of Missile Barrage/Minoletta's Concussive Missiles/Minoletta's Bounding Missiles and so on, Scroll of Defense

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Hey there. Here's another one that I liked a lot while I played him. This build is inspired by the engineer class of Torchlight II, where he could be a tanky supporter as well as a sturdy damage dealer. This build combines decent damage with good survivability. To fit the background, he makes use of different kinds of missilies (Prestidigitator's Missiles and diverse scrolls). 

One of best trick this build has evolves around his ability "Sundering Blow". It's a pity that it comes so late, but nevertheless it opens up some smart maneuvers (with missiles!). But I'll come to that later. Here I go:

 

Defense/Survivability:

I wanted to strengthen the fighter's self healing capability as much as I could, so I took Rapid Recovery, put on a regenerating item (first Trollhide Belt, later He Carries Many Scars), bought the Cloak of the Tireless Defender and used a draining weapon that fits the theme and also could be seen as a tool (first Gaun's Share, then later I switched to Blesca's Labor). I didn't max MIG though because I also wanted to have fairly high INT, DEX and PER - so I left it at 15. On top of that, I figured that a Belt of Bountiful Healing would also work together with draining and Constant Recovery - and it indeed does. So that adds up another +15% of healing power. That's like having 20 MIG instead of 15 when it comes to healing. With the Bracers of All-Consuming Rage he's got a a MIG score of 17 which gives +21% to all healing. Resting bonuses, consumables and the like will further boost the self healing.

All in all he has a constant, passive recovery rate (I mean without buffs, consumables and stuff) of: (3+1+2+1)*1.36 = 9.52 points of endurance per tick (=every 3 secs). Theoretically. In the game it might be 9 or 10 due to rounding. That's pretty good. And as long as we hit things, we will gain some endurance on top of that from draining. I'd say that's around 6 to 12 points at higher levels. Due to ok INT this whole recovery thing will also last quite long.

As good as this healing is - it will not save you if you receive lots of nasty crits all the time while you're trying to save your companions' butts. Since my RES was not very high I went for the large shields, Durgan Refinement/Reinforcement and Critical Defense to prevent that the Engineer receives too many crits. Hits are ok from time to time, as long as you hit you will heal those completely. Grazes are no threat at all since they are eaten away by your recovery. You could also use a smaller shield and put more points into RES and less into PER - I think that will result in the same numbers. Large shields will lower your ACC, but the fighter has a good base ACC and flais are reliable - clubs, even better, have an ACC bonus, but let's talk about that later. I just liked large shields on this character. Old Gerun's Wall is superb and has crit to hit conversion - which makes it a very good defensive weapon.

I also went for plate armor because of the theme. Fighters get Armored Grace and can further lower the armor penalty with Durgan Steel. A plate only has a penalty of 15% after that. Let's be honest: that's just awesome. He Carries Many Scars seemed to be the best choice because it not only is regenerating my endurace but also gets better if you drop under 25% health. That can be an issue if you face Ogre Druids and friends. The Plague of Insects will not knock you out because you heal all the time, but your health will go down as well - and no healing will prevent that. It's nice that you get extra DR if your health is low. This makes standard attacks even less dangerous for you.

If all goes wrong, the Engineer still has Unbroken to revive him. This did not happen often - I remember that it kicked in when I was soloing the Nalrend Bounty (just for the sake of soloing). I just walked in and started clubbing. At some point all the Plagues of Insects overwhelmed me. Then I got revived and finished it... or them.

I have to say as long as the constant recovery is working you're nearly unkillable. Exceptions: if you get hit by heavy CC (Lagufaeth, Banshees) and dragons.

 

Offense:

While the guy is really a roly-poly I also wanted him to do some serious damage. Fast hitting, accurate weapons with draining are ok, but against high DR foes they stink a bit, even with all the dmg bonuses the fighter can accumulate. Punching and kicking beetles forever might be fun, but it's not good for our terminated self-healing which runs out if a fight takes too long. What he lacked to this point is some serious burst damage to take out dangerous foes quickly. Since he's a Engineer he should have invented some artillery to do that. Luckily there's lots of different missile scrolls. We'l pretend that's his ammo for his armor. And there are items with spell bindings like Animancer's Boots (oh, that fits nicely). On top, we can take Prestidigitator's Missiles! Crap you say? Wait - they don't do too much damage and it's 2/rest - but Josh announced that this will be changed to per-encounter... another advantage is that they do crush/corrode damage. That can be really useful against annoying foes that have immunities (blights for example). And it just fits the theme so well that I took it. If your enemy has zero DR, they are actually quite nice. All missile spells are great if your foes that have low DR. Same goes for the Blunderbuss that I chose for my second weapon slot. So my next mission was to find a way to lower DR. Sundering Blow came to mind. It's perfect to lower DR on a single foe for quite a long time and you have 2 uses per encounter. Before that I had to use a Wizard or Cipher to lower the DR of foes a bit. If you absolutely don't like to use Prestidigitator's Missiles then you could use an Island Aumaua with Quick Switch and another Blunderbuss instead. I think this would be even more powerful. Anyway - I wanted to stick to the theme. Sundering Blow will lower the DR by 8 points. This is great but most of the time not enough to completely get rid of the DR. So I also picked Penetrating Shot. This works not only with the Blunderbuss, but with all missile spells too. So now we could hit a foe with a Sunderng Blow and then shoot him with a Blunderbuss and missiles that have 5 DR from Penetrating Shot. You will bypass 13 DR with this. Missile Barrage has another 3 DR bypass. If you encounter a foe with 16 DR and use this setup, he will get hit from your Blunderbuss and a Missile Barrage as if he had no DR at all. That's a ton of damage. You could push this further with a wizard and a cipher or Ryona's Vembraces (+3 DR bypass), but I didn't feel the need to do so. THe good thing about all these different missile spells is the fact that they all apply different damage. It's either pierce,crush,slash or corrode - so you're very flexible.

As a Blunderbuss a chose Scon Mica's Roar above Lead Spitter. Only recently mosspit pointed out that the disorienting enchantment of this Blunderbusse's 6 projectiles stacks (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83526-the-darcozzi-forward-observer-could-use-some-input/?do=findComment&comment=1761930) - it causes -30 to all defenses when all shots hit. It's true and this is just too good to let it pass. So against tough enemies I do it like so: Sundering Blow, switch to Blunderbuss, fire (for tons of damage), then unleash a Missile Barrage for even more damage because most of the 9 missiles will crit. Most of the time that's it for the enemy (if he's not an Ogre Matron or something meaty like that). If not, I use Knockdown and finish him off with the club or another missile. From time to time I will also use scrolls of Jolting Touch or Crackling Bolt just for the sake of diversity. THe Animancer's Boots also have Jolting Touch, so I will use that up first before I will waste scrolls.

Against the common mobs I don't use scrolls - Instead I put on a cloak of Minor Missiles instead of the Cloak of the Tireless Defender. I found two of them in my last playthrough. That's 6 spells per rest, 8 if you count Prestidigitator's Missiles and 11 if you count Jolting Touch from the Animancers Boots. The Engineer is like a little wizard.

If all spells and scrolls are used up and there's still somebody standing, his standard damage with the club is still good. Blesca's Labor is very good for this setup because it has ACC+5 since it's a club, it's superb and has the Coordinating enchantment which gives you another +4 ACC if you team up against a foe. Because of this you don't realize you're fighting with a large shield. ACC was over 90 at lvl 14 - that's good enough. If you don't feel the need for more ACC and draining you can also go for a sabre, war hammer or a mace or something like that - the good thing about clubs is that you can imagine that some tools like wrenches etc. may be used as clubs AND they are also in the same weapon group as the Blunderbuss.

 

Summons:

He's an animancer and an engineer - he's summoning an Animat for sure. If he would have been the main char, I also would have used the tiny animat pet - but he wasn't. I used it nevertheless.

 

Great - again lots of text, sorry for that.

 

Have fun and a Happy New Year to you all!

Hope your wishes come true - as long as they don't involve me being punched or slapped or something like that...

Edited April 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[Mocker22]

As always man a very interesting and well thought out build. I'm very interested to try this out. I love the idea of a fighter that takes more thought and control then simply buff, click, let attack. I think I will probably go more for a variant that uses Quick Switch and two blunderbusses. Aumaua would be the best for this but dwarf definitely fits the build better. I might try to fit in the talents to make this idea work as a dwarf. I was also considering getting Disciplined barrage in there to really make the Blunderbuss shots give it their all.

 

-Do you think int could be lowered a bit without serious repercussions to the build working?

 

-Any particular builds that you used with this guy, that you thought worked extremely well?

[Boeroer]

Thanks a lot.

 

- I also would use an Island Aumaua if I wanted to use two or more guns. I just used a dwarf because I never had before.

 

- You could lower INT without causing serious damage to the build I think. If you kill quicker, you don't need the extra duration for your heals or Sundering Blow.

 

- I used a wizard with the rod "Golden Gaze" (two projectiles that each have 5% chance to proc Expose Vulnerabilites) who also cast Combusting Wounds a lot. The two projectiles with each triggering a blast were nice for that - as where the multiple hits from Blunderbuss and Missiles. Remember: every projectile causes 5 additional burn damage when Combusting Wounds is on. It was a great synergy effect. I also had a Druid for lots of DoT effects that also buffed Combusting Wound's damage further - but that had nothng to do with the Engineer.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Boeroer

[Mocker22]

The min-maxer in me says go Island Aumaua, but to me dwarves just fit the concept of a craftsman using his craftiness(da-da-dun) to be effective. Fitting in Arms Bearer and Quick Switch might be very tough though. I think that that second shot with Lead Spitter would be insane dmg tho.

[Boeroer]

Yes, the Blunderbusses really rock if you can take away all the DR and have all the +dmg mods. Arms Bearer + Armed to the Teeth + Quick Switch would be lots of burst damage. Or you skip Quick Switch and use the Coil of Resourcefulness instead. That would save you one talent point.

[AndreaColombo]

Dude, had totally missed that post about Son Mica's ... that makes it an insanely powerful weapon that I *must* use in my next play through.

 

Also, great build I really like the idea of a Fighter casting missiles and of course using Penetrating Shot with spells is groovy (though a Ranger would be even better suited for this.)

[Boeroer]

Thanks. Yes, it would make more sense in terms of powergaming. I even think that driving flight works with some of the missile spells (barrage and minor) - which would make it even more awesome. But the animal companion just doesn't fit in.

And he has no sundering blow of course.

[Boeroer]

Constant Recovery and Rapid Recovery do more healing in 3.0 AND scale with level. Since this build tries to abuse regeneration anyways now this guy will be nearly unkillable I think. Unless he doesn't run out of health that is. But it's only 45 secs now! So watch out after that. Another reason to send this guy directly into the fray...

Edited January 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Do they now? How does the scaling look like?

[Boeroer]

It looks great.

 

Hehe - I will post exact numbers later.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Does the Cloak of the Tireless Defender stack with the fighter Recover abilities?

[Boeroer]

Yessir - so does a Trollhide Belt and similar items. Well, it used to... didn't check that with the new patch.

Like my build explained you can stack all that stuff in order to reach impressive recovery.

 

Would be really stupid otherwise because only fighters can wear that cloak.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Blades of Vanatar]

Well.. I was thinking maybe it was like the ring that suppresses afflictions. It doesn't stack with the spell but it does the same thing. In the case of the Cloak I was thinking maybe a Fighter who wears it can pick a different ability instead. Allowing for more build customization. But if it stacks...

[Boeroer]

But you have Constant Recovery from the start. Or were you just talking about Rapid Recovery?

 

Whatever - it's a nice thing that it all stacks. Also with chanter's Ancient Memory & Beloved Spirits. That also got a buff by the way. Got doubled and also scales now. Duration halfed.

[Boeroer]

Do they now? How does the scaling look like?

I did some tests now and it seems that Constant Recovery does not scale with level. It's 6 points per tick now instead of 3 and only lasts 45 secs. Rapid Recovery however does scale with level. At lvl 14 my Engineer with 17 MIG gets 5.3 endurance per tick. So at lvl 14 the effect is doubled (used to be 1/tick, now 2/tick at lvl 1). The cloak is not affected. It's still +2 per tick (but with halfed duration). It all still stacks. Now the Engineer regains 15 endurance per tick instead of 9 or 10. This is not bad - but in absolute numbers it's worse than before:

 

Old version: 9 end per tick for 90 sec means 270 end

New Version: 15 end per tick for 45 sec means 225 end

 

I still think it's better because as a tank you most deperately need healing when there are lots of enemies poking at you - not so much at the end of a fight. And sometimes 9 per tick is not enough. 

Edited January 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

But the nerf to 45 seconds was very much uncalled for.

[Boeroer]

As always... 

 

I mean - it already got nerfed from infinite to 90 secs before.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

...indeed, and that was already unwarranted!

 

I mean, I love this game and I like most of the changes they're making, don't get me wrong; but the Cipher and Constant Recovery nerfs are just out of place.

[Boeroer]

Didn't we also have this stupid Defender nerf that nobody called for? 

[AndreaColombo]

We did, but I never really used the ability anyway so I felt it much less. Appreciate people playing defensive Fighters got burnt quite a bit with that one.

[DreamWayfarer]

Well, constant recovery going from infinite to 90 seconds could be seem as an incentive for Fighters to invest more in INT, but it surely wasn't very elegant, effective or even logical.

[Boeroer]

I never played a fighter before this one - so I didn't feel anything they did to them. I still don't understand it. There was no need and there is no need for a fighter nerf.

 

They nerf classes that are not overpowered at all.

 

They buffed some classes that needed it (paladin, ranger) some while ago, which was good - but now these are way more powerful than the classes they recently nerfed. And they buffed paladin and ranger again! I mean stunning shots for melee rangers - wow. Not that I complain about that - I just don't know if they have a stoned turtle sitting at the balance-desk or what?

[Elouen]

what a crazy good build, would it work with an barbarian? and would it be better? and would it work with Edèr even with his stats? would it be a good  main character ? 

[Boeroer]

The self healing part def. works well with a Barbarian, too. I guess Edér would also work.

[Teebo]

I love the direction of this build but really want to use a ranger. What would a ranger look like using this build?