Engineer

[Ulthanfric]

Engineer

The role of the engineer varies based on the battle you are in. In some of the instances you will have multiple roles that you need to fill. The general roles of the Engineer are as follows.

Rank 0

Barricade Setup and Maintenance. 
In most instances the barricades will not have been set up. You will need to either pick up a crate to place it or you will see a red outline of a barricade that needs to be built. When you are placing a barricade down from a crate the direction your character is facing will determine what way the barricade faces. You will want to place it so that enemies will travel through the barricade for the longest duration.
Sappers when they come in on waves are going to target barricades as one of their main targets. When they are inducting it means they are about to set it on fire. If you can interrupt them. Otherwise while a barricade is on fire it will take constant damage until it is Extinguished. You will have to click on the barricade and use the Extinguish function to put it out and then Repair to fix it.

Catapult/Ballista Setup and Manning. 
Most Catapults and Ballistas will need to be built before they can be utilized. 
The Catapult needs to be Loaded and Cranked before you can see where your target is. With the Catapult you can then crank more to increase the distance. You can also Aim Left and Right to change the position of your target. 
The Ballista requires only a Load and a single Crank before you can see where your target is. From there you Aim Left, Right, Up and Down to change the position of your target.

Ladder/Grappling Hook disabling.
On any battle on the wall you can control the flow of battle some by knocking down Ladders and Grappling Hooks. This cuts down on the number of foes that can climb the wall. Ladders have been observed to be the only means for Commanders to climb the wall.

Explosive Disabling.
Sappers and other Orcs in side quests will place explosives down at different goals. It is important to disable this quickly. There are multiple sizes of explosives the larger the size the longer it takes to disable. These larger explosives need multiple people to disable them.

Rank 1



This is the UI you get when you have Traps as well as a Catapult, Barricade and Ballista picked up. This also shows you the range of effect of the different Traps.

Able to pick up Placeable Barricades

Able to Place Traps. That is the Bear Trap, Caltrop and Tripwires. Engineers can obtain traits that will shorten the cooldown, increase the number of times a trap triggers and increase the damage done by the different traps. Traps are very handy for slowing foes and assisting in damaging them. A trap placed where a barricade is is quite handy.
- Bear Traps deal damage to enemies and make them more vulnerable to attacks.
- Caltrops will stick in enemies feet and continue to damage them.
- Tripwire will knowck down enemies making them more vulnerable to attacks and easier for allies to land critical hits on. If an enemy has stun immunity on them this will not affect them.

Able to Upgrade Armour on Siege Weapons

Rank 2

Able to load Heavy Catapult Shells.

Grants +5% Contribution boost to all engineering activities. That is you get 5% faster at everything.

Rank 3

Able to place boxed up Catapults and Ballistas.

Able to Upgrade the Crank speed on Siege Weapons.

Able to Add Demoralizing Powder to Catapult Shells.

Rank 4

Able to Load Grapeshot Catapult Shells. 

Able to Add Leeching Powder to Catapult Shells. This will leech morale from the targets over time.

Grants a 15% Contribution boost to all engineer activities.

Rank 5

Able to load Triple Catapult Shells. This a multi spread shell that hits 3 places.
Able to Upgrade Damage of Siege Weapons.
Able to Apply Slow Powder to Catapult Shells.

Rank 6

Able to load Spread Catapult Shells.
Able to Upgrade Distance of Siege Weapons.
Able to apply a Rending Powder to Catapult Shells.
Grants a 30% Contribution boost to all engineer activities.

[Patriotpea]

To acquire platinum rewards for main quests along with side quests(i call it 'Full Plat') it is MUCH MUCH easier with a good engineer and a high ranking one. The ability to place ballistas and catapults where enemies are spawning as well as the ability to range new waves with catapults/ballistas will be most helpful.  Most of the time I keep busy just repairing, using catapults/ballistas/traps/ and moving place-able weapons back and forth where I need them. 

Most of the time Im staying engineer spec.


Traps: Tripwire is the best to use. At higher levels, you will be able to stun entire waves at a time and you can also increase the amount of times a single trap can trip(stuns them) enemies and the duration of those stuns.

 

it doesnt matter as much for higher ranks but at lower levels they help quite abit.
Contributions allow you to do things faster. Disabling,dismantling,loading,aiming,cranking,repairing etc

 

Later on, around rank 5, you will most likely be maxing most of these so point distribution between them isnt as important. Just make sure to max out the ones you will be doing the most during that battle. No point maxing crank/loading if you arent managing catapults/ballistas. You can spend those points elsewhere.


When you unlock the ability to place ballistas/catapults almost anywhere- you will be spending alot of time moving it around. Helps if you have high dismantling or just get help from a fellow engineer so its faster.
The key to these ballistas/catapults is to place them in a way where you wont need to aim left/right and crank it up and down to hit targets. Just load,crank,fire.

[Ulthanfric]

Yeah im engineer rank 3 on cappy and been experimenting with placing catas, on helms dike seems to work to have them right next to the commanders and just load, crank and fire at incoming waves.

Still unsure about ballistas, they are slow to move and dont seem to do much.

[Bethollind]

just made level 3 engineer too - and was experimenting as well...

Also dont like the ballista - only the catapult.

Deeping wall raid i did few days ago - the catapult (not done by me) destroyed massive amounts of adds... the engineer was prob level 5-6... each shot were 3 seperate ones that each killed a lot of adds...

Gonna look into the trick of swapping to officer for buffing the soldiers/commanders and back to engineer for the rest...

[Patriotpea]

I prefer ballistas over catapults. Faster fire rates plus higher point blank damage. Place ballistas where the enemies spawn and you can solo,most of em for plats. Dike: I place catas where seiege engine breaks the door, then the other to range the stone carriers. Ballistas to point blank guard the watchtower and statue. Deeping wall: ballistas inside the towers where you protect supplies/soldiers. Then one where you seal the hole. Was doing this with welthrop and he would RoA from camo while I use ballista and the orcs died the moment they spawned. For main catapults, I use leeching powder and either grape shot or triple shell. Gotta be sure to always destroy the enemy catapults or it will destroy yours, then kill every soldier you have. Its important for someone to always use catapults, then sometimes switch buffing. Everyone should be switch buffing. Did some duos with a random person the other day who was rank 3 vanguard who didnt switch and it was harder than with another engineer swapper. If you are on top of things, seems engineer/officer swap makes vanguard almost useless. Catapults/ballistas can kill targets on the field faster than you ever could. The npcs will have to deal with less waves. Engineer to officer is the best. Easiest too. In 6/12 mans, 4 engineers with back to back trips should be able to perma stun waves. With multiple hunters, you can get more traps with yellow off tree as well as perma rooting waves witg low cut. Easy picking for your fellows and soldiers.

[Ulthanfric]

Without complicating things too much, works great with a (at least)r3 engineer and officer when duoing. Me and Ella got overall platinum in deeping wall quite easily with ella ordering the soldiers around and me using the cata (love leeching powder). Also repairing/healing the banners helped ( didn't payed much attention to those before but they seem key to achieving plat) and yes some heals can be cast at same time while repairing, which accelerates the process.

[Patriotpea]

we need to raid up :D

sounds really fun once everyone gets atleast rank 3

[Bethollind]

Deal Pat

Would be a good thing - been a while since we played together...