We Are the 5%: Engineer Class Appreciation Thread

Remnant VI, Assault Turret, Invasion (literally tiny VI drones, c'mon!) and Combat Drone from the Engineer profile

Assault Turret to prime combos with cryo ammo & Remnant VI to detonate combos with missiles

Basically a drone-gineer's wet dream

I have not played Mass Effect: Andromeda yet, but I can help you with ME1, ME2, and ME3.

Most of the help build and gameplay advice for the Mass Effect trilogy is here: Mass Effect trilogy: Game mechanics and character build compilation thread.

For Mass Effect 1, I recommend capn233's guide: Basic Engineer leveling guide.


For Mass Effect 2, what difficulty do you intend to play?

For Hardcore and Insanity, I recommend this build for first-time Engineers:
4 - Area Overload
4 - Incineration Blast
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full Cryo Blast
0 - AI Hacking
4 - Demolisher
1 - Neural Shock

You can build it in two ways:
1. Start by putting points into overload to unlock Incinerate > then build your passive > then finish maxing Overload and Incinerate > Cryo Blast last.
2. Max passive first > then max Overload and Incinerate > then Cryo Blast last.

The benefit of 1: you face a lot of armor on Mordin's recruit + Incinerate stops health regen of Krogan and Vorcha.
The benefit of 2: you can get max cooldown really early.

Best Squadmate: Mordin. Mordin's evolved rank 4 Cryo Blast has a 4.5 second base cooldown, which coincides nicely with your -20% passive cooldown bonus on Overload and Incinerate. You can essentially use Shepard's Overload/Incinerate > Mordin's Cryo Blast. and they will both cool down at the same time.


For Veteran and below, you can still use the above build, but only tougher enemies have protections (armor/barriers/shields), so I would ignore Overload and Incinerate, and go something like this:

1 - Overload (good for detonating pyros)
0 - Incinerate
4 - Attack Drone
4 - Full Cryo Blast
4 - Improved AI Hacking
4 - Mechanic
4 - (Bonus power)

I actually use the above build on Insanity as well, but I have played Engineer several times at this point. Use whatever bonus power you like. 

For bonus weapon, choose whatever. They are all good on the Engineer.


For Mass Effect 3, I recommend the following:

Sabotage: Backfire, Explosive Hack, Tech Vulnerability

Overload: Damage, Neural Shock, Shield Damage
Incinerate: Damage, Burning Damage, Armor Damage
Tech Mastery: Damage, Damage and Capacity, Power Mastery
Fitness: Durability, Barrier Recharge, Fitness Expert

Bonus power: Fortification/Defense Matrix or AP Ammo

You can combo all day long with the Engineer. Sabotage > Overload (tech burst) can kill groups of clustered enemies. Or Sabotage > Incinerate (tech burst) > Overload (fire explosion) on Brutes. You can chain Overload and Incinerate until enemies are dead. 

Best squadmates: EDI (incinerate and Overload), Tali (Energy Drain), Kaidan (Overload, Cryo Blast).


There are multiple ways to play the Engineer in ME2 and ME3 and have it feel really different. 

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it! Just to clarify, I won't be doing a full MET run as I haven't played ME1; I'll be starting with ME2. I was planning to play on Insanity because I breezed through it with a Soldier and Vanguard in my last two ME2 playthroughs.

As for build ideas, I was planning on using something like the second ME2 build you suggested where I'd use attack drone, AI hacking, and cryo blast to distract, harass, and immobilise enemies, which would open them up to attacks. That first build also seems powerful though, especially as AI hacking will only be useful in certain missions and completely useless in others. If I could use dominate then it would be fine, but as I don't have my previous saves I won't have it unlocked as a bonus power.

The Omega choice was something the game needed more of, give us some interrupts based on our class proficiency!

Ah, the engineer. I Love it.

But first of all, let me make something very clear here. If you are an engineer and are using peasants biotics as a bonus power, you should GET ANOTHER JOB, PUNK XD

No, not even warp ammo is allowed.

Anyway, in ME1, he's the worst class, let's face it
But I like; from a lore point of view; as this class combines with a commander who has as a priority keeping his squadron alive. He disable weapons, powers and shields, hack robots and IA and can have medic as class specialization.

The engineer came to life in 2. Much is discussed as the best companion to use in 2. There is no discussion, is not Miranda, or Thane, or Kasumi or any of those goofies that you recruit. This little guy here is your best friend on the battlefield.




Harbinger? Heavy Mechs? Shadow Broker? Summon your drone in the backs of these guys, they just can´t ignore the constant kicks it gives. What a troll. 


Talking about ME2, let me desagree with this:





4 - Area Overload - ok. But Heavy is good too.
4 - Incineration Blast - sure.
4 - Attack Drone - NOOOOOO =p Explosive drone is much better.
4 - Full Cryo Blast - maybe. Depend on the bonus power. I prefer 1 point.
0 - AI Hacking - yes. AI Hacking sux.
4 - Demolisher - yes.
1 - Neural Shock - No I want to love NS. Is the only purely offensive power of the Engineer in 1. But cryo already fill the crowd control role with more efficiency because works in mechs. Sometimes I use on my Infiltrator, but there´s something weird about this power: sometimes, when you strip a protection and use Nerual Shock immediately after, it does not work.

Best bonus power for the Engineer? Surprisingly it's Thane's ammunition. Because the engenieer is very good against shields and armor (and Miranda destroy the barriers) but he´s not so good against health. I always use this estrategy:

1) summon drone, constantly
2) break defenses
3) freeze the most dangerous enemy
4) kill with weapons

and this ammo is cool because reminds me the polonium rounds from 1.

méh, later I talk more.

How do you all prefer to balance power recharge bonus with weapon choice in ME3? I've so far been maximizing power recharge speed (or close to it), but I'm curious about other approaches.

Ah, the good old Domination builld.

It is FUN playing LoTSB and Arrival with it.

Funny what yan say, usually I pick Neural Shock for my engineer, because the cooldown and sinergy with the class.
I was messing with the mechanic settings in ME2 the other day and did a playthrough with the global cooldown removed.

This shows two things:

- how badly optimized combat is, techs like the engineer and sentinel OWN the battlefield even more than a soldier or vanguard
- how really the biotic class ended with the shortest straw

Maybe badly is a poor choice of words regarding combat, is more like returning to the roots of ME1: your engineer debuf the enemies and your squadmates finish them.

Need some advice about the engineer class....looks like I found the right place.

I've played ME1 4 times, infiltrator, vanguard, sentinel and adept. Honestly I SUCK at ME1 and hate the combat, so I run it on easy and let the squad do most of the work whilst I hide guard their flank and take out mobs with a sniper rifle. Then I use the pistol at close range, I hated being a vanguard and having to use the shotgun. It wasn't pretty.
I love the ME2 and 3 combat tho and play them on hardcore.

My favourites so far have been adept and sentinel, but I want to try engineer next playthru. Should I just be a sentinel in ME1 to make it easy and let the Lazarus project create an engineer for me, or should I just go with it from day one and experience the original engineer?

Thanks Caesar.

Ooh, my favorite class in the Trilogy! I remember my first playthrough of ME1 was with a sentinel to see whether I preferred tech or biotic abilities. Obviously tech won and engineer has been my favorite class for Shepard ever since.

Nerd is my favorite class in 1 because it had a solution for every situation you could get into. Still liked it but not as much in 2 and 3. Maybe I was just doing it wrong but the powers never felt potent enough in 2 and in 3 the weight system annoyed me.