Engineer Guide
From Mass Effect Wiki
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[edit] Suggested Talents
- Pistols- Very essential to the class. After using a tech talent against an enemy you will need to follow up with a barrage of fire from your pistol. Increases damage and accuracy for each talent point.
- Basic Armor- You will need to put quite a few points into this talent as the engineer does not have very much health or protection from enemy fire, and the shield boost ability is a very useful ability to have once you increase your shield strength. Talent points increase damage resistance and hardening.
- Decryption- The base of the Engineer class. It is extremely useful to deactivate an opponents weapon as soon as you meet them so you have the advantage. Increases damage done by the explosion of all tech abilities.
- Hacking- Allows the ability to turn synthetic enemies against each other, which can be useful once you upgrade it a bit, but don't rely on it too much. It also reduces the recharge time on tech talents.
- Electronics- Increases shield strength and unlocks Overload which is very useful as it disables shields, allowing you to directly attack an enemies health, which is very helpful to use on higher level enemies with tough shields and health. Increasing your shield strength is very very important as you will need to rely on your shields to defend yourself.
- Damping- Important to use because it increases the radius of the tech talents explosion. It allows you to use the ability to disable enemy tech and biotics, which can be useful when fighting asari or higher level geth.
- First Aid- Increases health returned when using medi-gel and lowers cool-down time for it. It is not very important to the class, except if you plan to do most of the work and take the brunt of the damage dealt to your squad, so you might need it to heal yourself.
- Medicine- Reduces cooldown time on medi-gel and allows you to use Neural Shock which can be fairly effective against organic targets.
- Spectre Training- Grants the very useful Unity which, unless you are planning to specialize as a Medic is the only way to revive KO'd squad mates.
[edit] Combat guide for the Engineer
First off, you should probably not be an Engineer on your first playthrough. Engineers are somewhat weak compared to the other classes as the amount of damage that they can deal and receive is considerably less than the other classes.
Getting into fights as the engineer is all about de-buffing. Right when you get into the action use some of your tech talents such as Sabotage to stop them from firing at you(recommended to use against stronger enemies that deal more damage) or Overload to take down their shields so you can thin their ranks in the first few minutes of combat. Make sure you try to use those abilities in an area effect as to affect as many enemies as you can, but sometimes it is better to target bigger threats. Using an ability against many enemies can be useful, but if a stronger opponents rains down loads of damage, it would be better to target by priority. You should target the priority threat as to stop it from doing much damage. This problem of choosing targets to de-buff is easily solved by putting more points into damping which increases the radius of most tech talents' explosion. The damping ability is most effectively used on biotic enemies, because most of them are weak in close combat and it stops you getting thrown down and losing precious seconds during the fight. Damping also disables tech abilities, but it can be hard to target the most annoying tech-using enemies, like the Geth Hopper.
Increasing your pistol talent points is also important because it is what deals damage to the enemies that you just disabled using your tech abilities. Accuracy is fairly important as you should be able to be a fair distance away from your enemies when you use your tech so that your squad mates can do most of the firing. Ergo, you should have an accurate weapon so you can fire from a medium distance away.
With the pistol talent you also gain the marksman ability, which greatly increases the damage output by granting increased accuracy and additional shots per second. With a fully maxed out pistol talent, enabling the master marksman ability, the pistol is about equivalent to the assault rifle regarding damage output.
Therefore adding assault rifles or shotgun as a bonus talent is not really necessary but it's great if it fits to the character's style. Adding the sniper rifles as a bonus talent conflicts with the infiltrator class (combined with AI hacking as bonus talent), which is much more powerful.
One thing to make sure you do is increase your shield strength and find armor that has a high amount shields and damage protection so that you can adequately protect yourself. Engineers can take very little damage before they fall, so having a high amount of shields by increasing your Electronics talent is crucial. You should have no trouble finding armor and other upgrades because of the Decryption talent which allows you to access hidden items in locked containers. High Decryption will also let you more effectively use Sabotage, and high Electronics also gives a bonus for repairing the Mako.
[edit] Squad Composition
In order to be an effective fighting force as an Engineer, your squad members should be powerhouses. Premium choices would be Ashley, Wrex, and Garrus. They can deal vast amounts of damage and Wrex's biotic powers can be very handy. Both also have a high amount of health which means they can take the heat off you and have them be your line of defense. Garrus has many uses because of his infiltrator-esque play style. He fights like Ashley and debuffs like Tali or Kaidan. Kaidan can also be a useful ally because of his biotic abilities, although Liara is even better. She has access to Singularity, which is great for getting enemies close together for a Sabotage or Overload attack, while Kaidan has some talent overlap with the engineer.
Also, the squad should be high in the First Aid talent, so that the engineer doesn't have to waste more points on it than are necessary to get access to Neural Shock.
Still, when making your choice you should always remember that you are mostly support, your squad is the main force of attack.
[edit] Engineer Specialization Classes
- Operative- Specializes in Sabotage and Overload as well as reducing recharge time on tech talents.
- Medic- Specializes in recharging medi-gel and increasing its effectiveness as well as increasing the effectiveness of the Neural Shock ability. With this specialization fallen squad members can be revived during combat without using the Unity ability.
