If you are commenting without facing t3 engineers you have seen nothing yet.
And all your comments are irrelevant to the topic.
I kill T3 engineers in my T2 recon too thanks. I frequently end up fielding my Dwarf 2 in T3 when I’m forced to play T3 to get R10 rep and it’s a game mode where we need beacon cappers.
Since recons can halve the regen of their target, by saying covops can out-dps an engineer’s reps but a recon can’t you’re saying a covops does fully double the damage of a recon. It clearly doesn’t.
I was responding to you. If my comments are irrelevant it’s only because yours are.
I am a 1400+ rated interceptor only player and i say if you lose to a inty (excluding good covops ) at 1v1 quit playing engineer.
Only a covop might actually kill a engineer at 1v1 .
Of course a covop does more then double the dmg of a recon in bursts and about the double dmg over time.
Plasma arc alone makes sure of that, not to mention they have plasma web ( free dmg over time ) and 90% boost to main weapon dmg. They also have better critical rates.
Covops are dps interceptors and recons are utility.
You are leading the topic to 1v1 against engineers. Forgetting the fact their buffs effect all.
1v1 vs another interceptor having the buff you stand no chance and forced to target the engineer first in all game modes. This also means you prioritize engineers over captains, bomb carriers etc. They become too dominating in playstyle.
When was the last time you saw 2 recons in a team or a 1 recon in 2 consecutive matches if it was that easy to kill other ships with recon modules ? Thats probably why developers share your logic.
I see that a lot actually. Having two Recons on a team allows your team some serious intel advantages, leading to serious battlefield dominance.
The way you talk about Interceptors you make it sound like they don’t have a role in this game. They clearly do - I am more concerned about mass interceptor than I am mass fighter.
The way you talk about Frigates you make it sound like they’re unstoppable, and that “most engis win” is how all games go. It is not. I played a Beacon Hunt where our team had no Engineers to the enemy’s 3. They lost, we won.
The Engineer is a class whose power depends on the supporting ships. If you obsess over the Engineer to the point of ignoring everyone else, then you will lose because you aren’t prioritizing targets.
Finally, on balance. The game is not “balanced” in the sense that every ship should be equally good as every other ship in every task. That isn’t how the game works. Some ships are better at raw DPS than others. Some are better at capturing Beacons, etc. Each ship has a role to fill, and based on real, in-game observations I would say that if any ships are “forcing playstyle” it is the Interceptors. I see more Intys now than ever before; Covert Ops in particular dominate the playing field [in T2 any way], with Frigates increasingly relegated to bullet sponge roles - they just try to distract the enemy long enough for everyone else to get the job done.
If the Covert Ops got a nerf, and I think they need one, my prediction would be that we’d see a rise in Gunship numbers as people look for a new way to deal an ungodly amount of damage as fast as possible.
Final point… last game I played? Enemy side had 3 Recon Interceptors. There were two Engineers in the whole match.
Actually I’m now going to stop being an xxxx and get back on topic because I actually agree with the OP on the big picture, if not the details. When I’m dogfighting an interceptor in an interceptor if I see he’s got engineer buffs I’ll frequently break off and attack the engineer, simply because killing the engineer followed by him is easier than trying to kill him while he’s regenerating 5% of his HP every second.
Even if engineers are easy to kill in an interceptor (which I happen to think they are, at least for 2/3 of inties) it still leads to one-dimensional gameplay when you *have* to go for the engineer first, *then* consider other targets.
I must disagree with your last statement, Binky. To use a term in other role-specific games, healers always generate a lot of threat because of how much they can affect the tides of the battle. I don’t believe it makes matches one-dimensional if there is an optimal way to take down the opposing team (in terms of kills). There are still many options available to the player and many methods to go about the same objective. Sometimes, if the game mode requires teams to move around a lot like in Beacon Hunt or Detonation, I will just kill an Engineer’s warp gate and fly past them.
Okay, let me present a few alternative questions regarding the “Inty vs Inty” scenario Blinky gave above…
If you see a Command Frigate offering resistance buffs to your desired target, do you feel the same need to break off and kill him first? If you do, that suggests that the Engineer is not, in fact, the overpowered monster some claim; it is simply the easiest to pick on. If you don’t, then why not?
No I don’t, because command ship resist buffs don’t cut my DPS as much. Also command ships are harder to kill.
Let’s take T2 because I have all the ships and figures to hand for that tier. since engineering is even more powerful in T3, this should suffice to make the point for T3 as well:
Command ship resists cut my damage by around 15%, but let’s be generous and say 20% because I’m hitting their resist hole.
Engineering buffs are a little more difficult to model, but let’s have a go. My guns on my Dwarf 2 do 924 combined DPS including crits and deflector, and since they’re RF plasma we don’t need to factor in overheating. Let’s say in a typical inty dogfight I’m only able to hit my target 1/3 of the time given how much time we spend twisting around each other. That gives me 308 DPS. Let’s again be generous and assume I’m hitting a good resist hole so he has 0 resistance so I do 100% damage.
Now for the reps. Once he hits hull he’ll be receiving 284 shield and 163 hull per second from nanodrone cloud and mass shield generator. Now I’m a recon so I’ll have spy droned him so that’ll be cut down to a total of 223 HPS.
So, in this scenario, engineering buffs cut my damage by 72% once he hits hull. As you can see, I’ll probably need to blow a missile on this fight just to get anywhere.
You may decide that my 1/3 hit rate is low, and you might be right, but given how much I see others missing inties in dogfights I think it’s about right, possibly a bit on the low side given how much fire an inty can dodge if it flies fully defensively. Also bear in mind even if you hit someone you might not necessarily hit with both guns.
Funny thing that’s happened to me 2-3 times now… I’ve been flying an Inty and retreated towards friendly Engineers expecting a heal, only to find they either haven’t turned their buffs on, or haven’t equipped any.
This leads me to an important point: Engineers can only dictate play if they know how to be Engineers in the first place.
Engineers are getting their active modules deactivated more frequently now and many pilots do not notice it immediately.
I’m guilty of that quite often since the last patch (or 2)
especially when getting slammed left right center with missiles while getting ECM’d at the same time. sometimes I didn’t see it right away being too busy trying to stay alive and / or shoot a circle strafing interceptor on my a.ss. A couple minutes later when things calmed down I would find I had my mods off.
3 min ago in a match when 3 engy frigs were nearby none of them had no mass shield generator nor nanocloud. What i consider to be close to a rule/must have, none of these 3 players had… WTF? Then i realized, that it was a mixed match with T2. It’s like an ELO-hell in LoL.
Actually I’m now going to stop being an xxxx and get back on topic because I actually agree with the OP on the big picture, if not the details. When I’m dogfighting an interceptor in an interceptor if I see he’s got engineer buffs I’ll frequently break off and attack the engineer, simply because killing the engineer followed by him is easier than trying to kill him while he’s regenerating 5% of his HP every second.
Even if engineers are easy to kill in an interceptor (which I happen to think they are, at least for 2/3 of inties) it still leads to one-dimensional gameplay when you *have* to go for the engineer first, *then* consider other targets.
I dare you to come at me head-on with an interceptor. I dare you.
JK. My Raptor Mk2 - bless her to pieces - is an excellent frigate and fighter killer when I have backup, and even when I don’t some mines help level off the playing field. She’s an engy as well. Now, I’ve played T3 and sometimes even T4 matches, and I can tell you this: engineers are hard-pressed to stay alive when they have no backup. The whole point of engineers is to provide support to teammates, and for them to get some help in return. All healers in all games work based on this concept. Tell me, how many times have you seen a healer in any game try to take a bunch of foes head on? Rarely, and that’s due mostly to stupidity/overconfidence. This is why you have to target them first: any buffers in any game are high-priority targets simply because of their drastic influence on a skirmish.
However, even in groups engineers can find it very difficult to defend themselves during a well-executed grouped interceptor rush with a plasma arc here or there, even with an engy ball going. I’d like to point out here that engy balls are ridiculous and I hate it when the opponent uses them, my team uses them or I’m unwillingly a part of one as they’re very OP, but teams that stop shooting for a second and think can very quickly eradicate an engineer and their companions.
And regarding the nanodrone/mass shield debate, I always keep a nanodrone cloud and mass shield in my active modules, as the two combined can up my survivability by just the amount I need to keep me going for those extra 5 seconds. Why the hell wouldn’t I? It’s practically an unwritten law that if you’re an engineer, you have one of the two.
I’ve never been able to tank much. But that’s because I try not to. That’s the Guard’s job. They’re the bullet sponge. I’m just the guy cowering behind him taking potshots at any unlucky sod who comes into my assault plasma range.
But if things do start to get hairy, I will pull myself out of the fight as quickly as I can manage so I can heal up and return for another go.
The game keeps evolving around focus firing engineers first or covering your engineers, waiting for them to arrive at a capture point or retreating to them when hurt.
I cant remember how many times people left the combat in mid game due to lack of an engineer.
Lack of any class should not be such a big factor.
Even in combat resonance engineers supporting the captain are priority targets if you want to take out the captain.
Their healing capabilities are very easy to use and heal more then the most dps any class can deal even with 100% accuracy on a stationary target.
This gameplay is just dull, repeatative and has no room for creativity and doomed to fail.
Thats why t3 is broken as hell.
I cant believe nothing has been done to healing still after all the complaints.
This is why engineers should be remade, they could be utility players with warpgates and such (we need to add the “such” first).
While we could have them heal in some way (or remove all forms of team heals from them) we could lower the focus on heals in their role to play on the battlefield.
I’m T4