How do you make the engineer offensively viable?

(INF3RN0) #1

Before you say “make him the objective class”- don’t. I am referring specifically to the engineers combat style and how defensively biased it is. How can the engineer become an offensive combat class?

The best I can come up with right now is to restrict frag grenades just to the engineer (rather than soldier) and have them start with 2, and maybe give it a long c/d for replenishing. The role of the soldier and the engineer should be shared, and if anything promote synergy between the two. Give the soldier special nades (conc/flashbang/etc) and give the engineer the explosive items to follow on the soldiers lead. Soldiers already benefit way too much from their weapon capabilities (which by the way needs increased recoil and headshot reliance).

You could further this by reducing the flat damage role of the current engineers abilities and instead split the effect between both damage and CC with very short slows/dazes/snares/etc and less instantaneous damage.

And yes engineers could be more proficient at objective completion, but then so should the recon. It doesn’t make a class more fun when your simply forced to play it even if it’s the worst possible choice for a given situation.

(Protekt1) #2

MGs could definitely use more recoil. But engineers with 2 grenades? Not sure if I am feeling that one. Already those sticky mines are quite a handful. I’d rather see flash bangs make a return or some other utility grenades. Maybe an electric/emp grenade that takes out deployables, counters recon spotting, turns off minimap temporarily, and does some damage in a smaller radius.

(twincannon) #3

Agreed: re making them necessary (whether through exclusion or faster completion speed) is a boring and not really fun solution. I was actually thinking just a few minutes ago that I had never ONCE thought about the classless objective system in the games we played today, and they felt balanced and great and I had a blast the whole time. Also every class seemed to be useful, even engineers which I was surprised about. So I really don’t want to see any class become needed “just because”.

Like you said though engineers on offense is a bit of a stretch. There’s some meta-strategy to having a turret or prox mine to maintain your line or bait the defense into, but once you rush out it does nothing for you. Sticky grenades can be a bit more offensive but they’re also kind of crappy. Of course once offensive turns defensive and you have to guard a C4 drop the engineer perks becomes a bit more valuable, but that doesn’t help for the rest of the objectives.

What if some engineer classes had some kind of “buff” utility, like able to place a shield on someone… or adrenaline speed boost (although that’s really more medic themed). Dunno, just random ideas.

Or what if engineers were simply quite a bit faster than the other classes? They already feel pretty speedy (female speed buff?) but what if it was to the point where it’s worth having them just as superior flankers, like 20-25% faster sprint speed? Just as a thought experiment. This would also mesh well with shotguns.

(Nail) #4

shield is coming

(INF3RN0) #5

Shield makes them offensive though?

(INF3RN0) #6

I did suggest that grenades be given to engineer and their other damage utilities reduced or altered accordingly :wink:.

(Nail) #7

just answering twincannon

(1-800-NOTHING) #8

i don’t think you’d have to balance -all- engineers offensively.

give Slugger an AR with a rifle grenade on cooldown?

atm he’s not very different from Proxy (shotty + passive explosives).
[and the sticky mines feel like an annoying and unnecessary layer of cheese/spam. at least to me…]

as for soldier weapons, i’m not sure more recoil would be the best solution. it’s not as if they’re particularily centered around dodging/strafing, so the IS/ADS movement penalty to compensate for increased recoil would mean less to the soldiers than the other, faster characters.
nerf bodyshot, tho.

(RasteRayzeR) #9

I’m playing offensive engi with Proxi. Basically I just move to the front line, drop a well placed mine and go as a bait to force enemies to follow me and step on my mine, finish them with the shotgun if needed.I guess we could call that “forwarded defense”. For close quarters, the shotgun is great. You can also plant mines at the exit of enemies’spawns or critical routes. As an engi I harass if I’m on offense so that others can get the objectives done.

And the turret is great for offense since it can replace one or two of your mates to cover you on an objective. In the end every defensive mechanism can be used as en offensive mechanism to cover your team and help them progress.

Right now I love playing the engineer class a lot, except for the “everyone can disarm thing”, which removes the strategic purpose of this honorable class.

(Dragonji) #10

How about giving a flak jacket known from W:ET to all the engineers?

(tokamak) #11

Make him the objective class.

(Kl3ppy) #12

why should this make the engi more offensive? he would just run around at the objective but not more …

Generally I always think, that the engi is not a front line guy. All the equippment he has is more for the defence than for attack. In ETQW he had mines + turrets which are mostly used for defence tasks. As attacker, the engi should be used to cover the back, e.g. planting mines on possible backrape routes, placing turrets on strategic points (choke point cover so that defenders cant rush into some areas etc)

(slanir) #13

the current 3 engineer characters have tools to lock down areas… maybe some of the up and coming engineers will have more offensive oriented tools? Can’t think of any right now without getting into soldier territory (grenades etc).

Either way I think we will see more engineers both on defense and offense once splash damage starts tweaking defuse/repair times

(INF3RN0) #14

In ETQW engineers were offensively viable because of vehicles. In DB I think it is a reallllllllly bad idea to just go for “offensive” and “defensive” loadouts because remember that no other class works that way. You want it to be balanced between the two, especially when loadouts are unlocked and not all available from the start. Throwing the objs at the engineer and calling it good is just ignoring the real problem.

(Evil-Doer) #15

It would be interesting for Engineer to just be a utility player. To be able to harass spawns, pick the enemy off here and there. It’s a great strategy if he doesn’t get changed in a more offensive manner.

(INF3RN0) #16

What do you mean exactly? Like be entirely ability dependent?

(Evil-Doer) #17

Depending on what direction this game is going, it’s very possible to just have a utility player that harasses. So yes, I mean sticky mining a spawn area, getting spawn times, get some random kills here and there to keep a team on edge.

As for your main topic as how to make him more offensive :slight_smile: - I kind of agree with you on two grenades like you mentioned.

(INF3RN0) #18

[QUOTE=Evil-Doer;463887]Depending on what direction this game is going, it’s very possible to just have a utility player that harasses. So yes, I mean sticky mining a spawn area, getting spawn times, get some random kills here and there to keep a team on edge.

As for your main topic as how to make him more offensive :slight_smile: - I kind of agree with you on two grenades like you mentioned.[/QUOTE]

Ah okay. Yea I see what you mean. I guess I’m mostly concerned with how difficult it can be to do what your saying for a lot of the objectives; just because of how the D spawn exits are on a lot of the objs. It would be nice to have a bit more flexibility as the engineer on offense, but you could still do exactly what you mentioned.

(tokamak) #19

Guess I’m the only one here who REALLY REALLY likes the idea of having a weaker member of the pack that everyone needs to protect because he’s essential for victory.

(1-800-NOTHING) #20

notice how you speak about the objectives guy -in third person-?